Essay Sample on Hospitals' Mergers

One of the emerging trends in organizations is the formation of mergers. With the increasing need for professional healthcare, a hospital may consider the possibility of combining with another with the aim of increasing the number of healthcare providers, enlarging the facility, among others. Before such is done, useful information that will analyze the pros and cons and the eventual outcome of the process must be implemented. Program evaluation is singled out in this paper since it assesses the need to take such a step in addition to making findings of the efficiency of the creation of a merger.

In the quest to form a merger, the first step of the evaluation process will be to assess the needs that drive such an agenda; one of which is to retain and improve vital services (In Newcomer, In Hatry & In Wholey, 2015). One of the hospitals offers heart surgery services to the public in isolation but has a single cardiothoracic surgeon. The other hospital has no equipment but has several cardiologists. For that reason, a program evaluation will consider whether this situation warrants the formation of a merger. Consequently, the theoretical part of the process of merger formation will be considered. It will entail a keen look at the planning, resolution, and implementation processes. The program evaluation process will look into expert reports that indicate share exchange ratios for both hospitals in addition to paying attention to any looming opposition from creditors and bondholders.

When all is clear an assessment of the mergers implementation will be conducted with the aim to determine the critical components that result in the hospitals success. The cardiopulmonary bypass machine is useless without the expertise of both the cardiothoracic surgeon and other cardiologists (In Kaiser, In Kron & In Spray, 2014). For the community to benefit from heart surgery services these ingredients must be present. Afterwards, program evaluation considers the possible outcome of the merger. A time period is chosen and the successes of the merger measured as at that instance. These successes will then be compared to those at another chosen time to determine the outcome change. These outcomes can be measured in terms of the number of successful heart surgeries and the patients satisfaction levels.

Conclusively, the efficiency of the merger will be assessed. It will encompass factors such as the costs of running the merger as opposed to individual institutions and the accrued benefits (In Newcomer, In Hatry & In Wholey, 2015). When all these steps of the evaluation process are met, the cumulative results can be utilized to determine the necessity of the hospitals strategy. Eventually, the concerned parties will make an informed decision.

References

In Kaiser, L. R., In Kron, I. L., & In Spray, T. L. (2014). Mastery of cardiothoracic surgery. In Newcomer, K. E., In Hatry, H. P., & In Wholey, J. S. (2015). Handbook of practical program evaluation.