Hospital corporations and multi-hospital arrangements.

There has been a recent trend toward consolidation of hospitals into multi-institutional systems. This article states reasons for this trend and explains how it influences the health care field. The author also describes his own company which, being the largest of such systems, affects a proportionally large number of pathologists and is a major trend-setter. Pathologists would be well advised to familiarize themselves with this phenomenon. This article is based on a lecture given last year to the American Pathology Foundation.