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Hospitals: To the next millennium
Author(s) -
Braithwaite Jeffrey,
Lazarus Leslie,
Vining Ross F.,
Soar Jeffrey
Publication year - 1995
Publication title -
the international journal of health planning and management
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.672
H-Index - 41
eISSN - 1099-1751
pISSN - 0749-6753
DOI - 10.1002/hpm.4740100203
Subject(s) - unit (ring theory) , business , acute care , core (optical fiber) , accident and emergency , medical emergency , facility management , operations management , health care , public relations , medicine , political science , marketing , computer science , economic growth , engineering , psychology , telecommunications , economics , mathematics education
Hospitals are changing. Throughout the OECD the hospital, that enduring and pervasive organization which has delivered the vast majority of acute care services for decades, is being reconceptualized. We briefly analyse trends which clearly indicate that the existing concept of the hospital is rapidly coming to an end. The emerging model consists of a core facility comprising only the most acute services, intensive care, operating theatres and an accident and emergency unit, with all other services and units linked by information technology to each other and to the core facility. We explore some of the management challenges confronting those who will be responsible for taking their organization through the transition to the boundaryless hospital arrangement, discuss a number of the existing problems with today's hospitals which the new model has the propensity to resolve, and deal with some of the emerging issues which it brings with it.