부산대학교 도서관

The determinants of health status depend on public health measures and curative and care services. “Hospitals” as organizations concentrate resources—physical capital and human capital, and technology—and thereby do things which other settings simply cannot. Yet, somehow, they mean different things to different people at different times and different places. Hospitals should be defined by their functions, not by their attributes. It is evident that the trade-off in concentrating resources does not always work out well. We lay out an approach to thinking about the role of hospitals, based around their governance, business models, and system and institutional models of care. We bear in mind contingencies of ownership and payment mechanisms, and pull this all together by reflecting on decision analysis.