The achievement of significant levels of influence on six program decision areas by communities served by health care program is investigated using Guttman scale analysis in a sample of 50 Children and Youth comprehensive health care projects in the United States to determine whether such achievement occurs in an ordered or a random sequence. Evidence presented indicates that the achievement of relative levels of community influence is orderly for initial levels of influence; higher levels of community influence apparently do not follow the same order. Implications of these findings for planning and predicting the development of personal health service programs are discussed.

Child Health Services↗

PubMedDate not supplied

Inpatient bed needs for psychiatric care.

Along with other types of hospital inpatient care, acute psychiatric units are subject to state certificate-of-need review under Public Law 93-641. A study of 15 hospitals in Virginia suggests that prevailing techniques for determining inpatient bed needs are not appropriate for psychiatric beds, if indeed they are for other types of care. An alternative technique is offered, not as a substitute for judgment in such matters, but as assistance to it.

Beds↗

PubMedDate not supplied

Marketing medical groups.

Marketing has emerged in the literature of medical group management only recently, but to a significant degree. Typically, it is discussed in the context of developing new programs, such as industrial medicine services, or in terms of advertising and public relations. These are perfectly valid areas in which marketing applies, but by no means are they the limit of its potential contribution. Viewed in its broadest context, marketing may be employed to govern most, if not all, essential decisions and operations of the medical group--to plan and manage the group's overall success, prosperity, and survival.

Group Practice↗