Tibbetts P L
Case Stud Health Adm. 1990;8:103-7.
Two hospitals sit together on a medical campus located in a large metropolitan area. The larger (746 beds) of the hospitals, St. Catherine's, was established in 1887 by a Catholic congregation of religious women. The other hospital (527 beds), Martindale, was established by a group of Lutheran pastors in 1916. The missions of the two hospitals are very similar. The hospitals are strategically located in the center of a metropolitan area. The marketplace is one which has been characterized as fiercely competitive, with 40 percent of the market enrolled in prepaid plans. The demand for hospital services continues to decline each year. There is significant over capacity in the metropolitan area, with an average occupancy around 50 percent. The hospitals have had a varied history of both cooperation and competition. In 1975, a joint venture organization was established to jointly share expensive technology and develop new shared programs. After a brief study of the declining volumes and profitability in both hospital emergency rooms and identifying that both were perceived as substandard by the public and by the physicians, the question became--"should two competing, neighboring hospitals consolidate their emergency services?" The case reports a problem commonly experienced by hospitals today--when to compete, when to collaborate and how to balance the two in pursuit of organizational competence and advantage.
两家医院坐落在一个大城市地区的医疗园区内。规模较大的圣凯瑟琳医院（746张床位）由一群天主教宗教女性于1887年建立。另一家医院马丁代尔医院（527张床位）由一群路德会牧师于1916年建立。两家医院的使命非常相似。这两家医院都位于大都市的中心地带。该市场的特点是竞争激烈，40%的市场参与者加入了预付费计划。医院服务需求每年都在持续下降。大都市地区存在严重的产能过剩，平均入住率约为50%。这两家医院在合作与竞争方面有着复杂的历史。1975年，成立了一个合资组织，共同分享昂贵的技术并开发新的共享项目。在对两家医院急诊室的业务量和盈利能力下降进行简要研究，并确定公众和医生都认为这两家急诊室不合格之后，问题就变成了——“两家相互竞争的相邻医院是否应该整合它们的急诊服务？”该案例报告了当今医院普遍面临的一个问题——何时竞争、何时合作以及如何在追求组织能力和优势的过程中平衡两者。
