Marketing imperatives for hospice and hospitals: implications of hospice headway.

This study reports physician perceptions of the administrative fluency of hospice programming and the comparative service qualities of hospice and acute care hospitals on 11 care needs of the terminally ill. Hospice programs evidence organizational sophistication levels which belie their institutional youth. Hospice had a clear advantage within our stacked comparison of care delivery for the terminally ill. Supporting our model of organizational adaptation, however, the performance gap was smallest on those attributes physicians rate as most important to the terminally ill. Finally, hospice referral rates are statistically explained more by administrative prowess than perceived advantages in care delivery. This compels hospital and hospice attention to informational and relational marketing to physicians.