Environmental and Organizational Predictors of Adoption of Cost Containment Policies in Hospitals

Abstract

This study examined predictors of the adoption of cost containment policies in a national sample of 303 not-for-profit hospitals. Analysis of the full sample indicated that adoption of such policies was positively related to response to external regulation, cooperative interorganizational involvement, external orientation, number of beds, occupancy rate, and the influence of chief administrators on governing boards; adoption was negatively related to length of patients' stays. Additional exploratory analysis of the data revealed different combinations of characteristics that were unique to subgroups of hospitals with the lowest and highest levels of policy adoption.