Apprenticeships help spot rising governance stars.

This article describes a process that will help boards to better evaluate potential new trustees, and provides some of the reasons why some individuals cannot adjust to the duties and responsibilities of hospital boardmanship.

Developing partnerships between physicians and healthcare executives.

Using an intensive interview methodology, this study examines factors that developed or destroyed cooperation in 10 physician-administrator management pairs. The data were collected from a six-multihospital system and another large sectarian teaching hospital. The factors studied included preconceptions, experiences prior to the formation of the pair, the emotional relationship between the two partners, and actions taken by one of the parties that affected the work of both. In general, physicians and administrators agreed more about factors promoting cooperation than factors destroying it. Moreover, few partners accurately assessed their counterparts' reactions to steps taken to promote cooperation. Most were unaware of behaviors reducing the willingness of the other to cooperate. Relationships improved or deteriorated based on beliefs by one partner about the other, rather than accurate perceptions of the other's behavior. The study is relevant to Diagnosis Related Groups (DRGs), the new federal financing mechanism for Medicare patients. Recent articles on Medicare's Prospective Payment System (PPS) predict conflicts between physicians and administrators as a result of the DRG program.

The referring physician: the key to a successful marketing analysis and program.

There are a variety of marketing approaches available to hospitals to help maintain and/or increase their influence in the competitive health care system. This article will focus on one important but relatively ignored aspect tha must be an integral part of any successful hospital marketing program. Referring physicians and the network this group forms around a hospital through the different referral patterns is of primary influence on the hospital's future. This article supports the thesis that the hospital's eventual survival or demise is directly linked to this often unconscious referral network.

Developing a strategy for managing the hospital's growing technology.

Successful hospital CEOs, administrators and department heads skilled at their professions, face a major challenge from the onslaught of rapidly developing medical instrumentation technology. To meet this rapidly growing challenge, they must identify their needs, survey their resources, and take positive action now to develop the necessary clinical engineering and equipment control programs to cope cost effectively with the future. This article provides an overview of the fundamental problem for the hospital administrator, suggests a direction toward solution, and provides a primer on the resources available to effectively deal with, if not solve, the enormous problem posed by the ever increasing technology dependence of health care.

A mathematical model to determine facility needs for a radiology department.

In summary, a mathematical model has been developed, tested, and applied which measures effectively the number as well as the type of radiographic rooms needed to meet the current and projected radiographic demand for a typical health care facility. The model first required a projection of radiographic procedures, based on historical data. Secondly, the projected total by patient classification was subdivided into procedure categories. Finally, the projected categorised radiographic procedures are introduced into the formula (Equation 1) and is shown below: (formula: see text). The formula is applied to each procedure category. The grand total for each of the four separately calculated categories will measure the total number of rooms and type of facility needed in the future. (formula: see text).