Integrated health systems: success or failure?

Abstract

There continues to be an increasing number of healthcare delivery systems as a result of marketplace changes that include declining reimbursement and increasing costs for healthcare. However, the majority of these systems fail. Failures are a consequence of poor management, lack of a common mission and business rationale, individual's interests that outweigh the entity's interests, and the conflict of cultures. Incremental changes will continue, but the healthcare environment will remain unstable for the foreseeable future.