title: Competition or conscience? Mixed-mission dilemmas of the voluntary hospital.
abstract: Voluntary hospitals must develop increasingly businesslike strategies to survive in today's market-driven health care system. While challenging and necessary, this behavior is stirring fears that the time-honored mission of these hospitals will be seriously undermined. Noting that the voluntary tradition leavens the competitive marketplace, the authors suggest that we have much to lose if voluntary not-for-profit hospitals no longer play a leading role in the health care system, including: needed services to all classes of patients, paying and nonpaying; an important locus of community expressions of compassion and charity; and the settings that have inspired the vision of what medicine and health care can accomplish for mankind.
mesh_terms: D001290:Attitude; D002608:Charities; D003132:Commerce; D003159:Community-Institutional Relations; D003363:Cost Control; D004465:Economic Competition; D006739:Hospital Administration; D006788:Hospitals, Voluntary / Q000458:organization & administration*; D006801:Humans; D009934:Organization and Administration; D009937:Organizational Objectives; D012380:Role; D012941:Social Responsibility; D014481:United States