Hospital Merger Essay

The board of trustees or directors, the community (if they have a say on the matter), and the employee union might influence the decision. If the financial difficulty is really severe, HSO might consider merging with another hospital in the area, if the other hospital is also struggling financially with their pediatrics unit or if the other hospital is ‘larger’. In both cases, the result will be more efficiency. This will be advantageous to my hospital and my hospital’s patients, for the bigger hospital might be better-equipped technologically. The merge itself does not need to be absolute; it does not require a complete consolidation of the other units/services. For example, it might be planned that the pediatrics services will be provided

This plan is being questioned prospectively- in terms of its future effects. Positively, the goal of providing a range of quality service is practical. The pediatrics unit is costing the hospital a lot of money to maintain. With closing it down, the money and resources can be allocated to another unit or another service within the hospital. For instance, take into consideration the many hospitals in the Los Angeles area: White Memorial Hospital, Keck Hospital of USC, Huntington Hospital, etc. Having many hospitals with their various services offer a lot of choices for the patient, but is it really necessary? Furthermore, the competition between hospitals can be seen as to who offers the most services, because they can garner the most patients, which in turn makes more profit. Patient safety is not put at risk if the unit is closed, since there are other hospitals who offer the same service. The second objective is the effect on the resident doctors who are trying to specialize in pediatrics of the hospital. This objective would be hard to reach if the unit gets closed, because they would not be able to get their clinical experience. It should also be factored in that there is a shortage of doctors and that doctors are not allocated/distributed equally; this problem would be heightened even more once the unit is