A study of the characteristics and performance of merging hospitals in the United States

This study investigates the performance of merging hospitals and addresses the question: When is merger a viable solution to the problem of maintaining and improving effectiveness and efficiency in health care delivery? Hospital merger includes any form of combination whereby two or more hospitals are joined together under the same governing board with an attendant loss of autonomy involved for the less prominent hospital(s). In order to hold the technology factor constant, the study universe was limited to horizontal mergers involving short-term, non-profit, general hospitals. After defining an appropriate universe of hospital mergers that occurred during the period 1956-1970, the study delineates pre-merger characteristics of merging facilities and provides performance comparisons of merging hospitals and their paired independent counterparts. This methodology has been used successfully to study the performance of merging banks and involves the selection of certain pre-merger characteristics of acquiring (merging), acquired, and paired nonmerging institutions. Characteristics are defined by various capabilities and levels of output. Performance is measured by changes over time in these characteristics. ..