Comparing Hospital Mission Statement Content in a Changing Healthcare Field.

Mission statements are key elements of how an organization communicates its purpose and priorities to its community. This study considers how mission statements from Ohio, Florida, and Texas hospitals approach key concepts in healthcare - access, cost, and quality. It also considers the concept of community benefit, given its recent prevalence in policy changes. The analysis found quality represented within hospital mission statements at a rate of 65%, compared to 21% for access, 21% for cost, and 24% for community benefit. Investor-owned hospitals emphasize quality and cost at significantly higher rates while not-for-profit hospitals emphasize access and community benefit at significantly higher rates than other organization types.

Recruitment and retention of rural hospital administrators: a multifaceted approach.

A major challenge confronting healthcare delivery in the United States is the shortage of clinical professionals in rural areas. Although most of the research surrounding this problem has focused on physicians and nurses, other healthcare professionals have received much less attention. Although not a clinician or hands-on care provider, the hospital administrator is an integral component of rural healthcare delivery systems and is instrumental in the organization and delivery of services. This article examines some of the factors that impact the recruitment and retention process for rural hospital administrators. The authors suggest that recruitment and retention success can be best achieved by adopting a multifaceted approach that includes aspects of and considerations from 3 separate areas: personal, organizational, and community attributes. The authors provide recommendations and insights for rural hospital governing boards responsible for this process.

Performance appraisal: helpful hints for the busy medical practice manager.

This article describes the performance appraisal process in terms of its three fundamental steps. defining job performance, measuring actual job performance, and providing job performance feedback. Given that most practice managers wear many hats and do not have extensive experience or staff support in human resources, the purpose of this article is to provide these busy individuals with useful, practical suggestions that should enhance the effectiveness of the performance appraisal process for nonphysician employees within the medical practice setting. Performance appraisal should be a priority for all practice managers, as the performance of individual employees represents the key to long-term success for any medical practice.

Comparing mission statement content in for-profit and not-for-profit hospitals: does mission really matter?

In this article, the author examined the content of mission statements in both the for-profit and not-for-profit hospital sectors. He used content analysis to compare and contrast the existence and frequency of words or phrases found in the mission statements of each sector. In particular, he analyzed the following three concepts: cost, access, and quality. The author found no significant differences in mission statement content across these three concepts when he compared investor-owned (for-profit) and nongovernmental not-for-profit hospitals. The results of this study suggest that the hospital industry lags behind other sectors in the design and development of thorough and complete mission statements. Hospital executives are encouraged to devote more time to the construction of hospital-specific and comprehensive mission statements that will provide important information for stakeholders, while simultaneously capturing the organization's unique purpose and niche in the competitive healthcare environment.