Food services merge to contain costs and enhance menu

A sharing of food service facilities between two institutions has cut costs and has benefited patients and dietary staff. It was aided by a standardization of menus, which increased the variety to the patient but simplified menu tabulation and production for the food service operation. The program's success has enhanced the image of many of the hospital's other programs.

Consolidation of community hospitals

The largest component of U.S. health care expenditures is the cost of hospital care. Evidence seems to indicate that community hospital costs can be reduced through the consolidation of some, or even all, hospital services. Although no discernible set of relevant minimal costs for the hospital industry has been established as yet, significant economies of scale can be attributed to the consolidation process. In addition to potential economic benefits, medical benefits can also accure to the community as well when inefficient, low-volume services are combined to provide more attractive resources to highly qualified specialists. Many independent community hospitals operate autonomously, often to the detriment of community health needs and economy. Those hospitals that fail to take advantage of the opportunities offered by consolidation may not be keeping faith with the population they claim to serve.

Psychiatric emergency service expands to serve total hospital

A hospital with a comprehensive psychiatric service provides a nearby general hospital with staff and backup for psychiatric consultations, crisis intervention, concurrent psychiatric care of medical-surgical patients, follow-up for psychiatric hospitalization or referrals, and staff education. Personnel include senior psychiatrists and on-call residents, and the program relies heavily on use of psychiatric nursing clinical specialists and RNs with experience in psychiatric nursing.

Shared services in a small multihospital system

The pressures of governmental regulation and the inevitability of NHI or catastrophic insurance programs will lead hospitals to multiinstitutional arrangements as means of survival. The experience of the Tri-County Hospital Group, Wooster, OH, suggests some optimal conditions for shared services organizations and stresses the advantages of quality and economy which may be reaped by hospitals participating in such plans.

Hospital, nursing homes become partners in psychiatric care

Hospital psychiatric staffs can effectively share their expertise with nursing homes. One hospital's psychiatric out-reach program has reduced patient management problems at participating nursing homes, improved patients and staff morale, changed staff attitudes, garnered physician support, and extended services provided by the psychiatric department.