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- Title
Social Structure of Clinics and Patient Improvement.
- Authors
Simon, Abraham J.
- Abstract
This study concerns the problem of specialization and the division of work in the context of clinical care for the chronically ill. Existing clinic organization is one of "multiple specialization," in which each patient may be referred to a variety of specialists in several clinics. An alternative structure is the "comprehensive clinic," where all medical care is centered in a single clinic under one staff. In order to test the relative effectiveness of these two systems, an experimental group of "comprehensive clinic" cases was established and compared in terms of patient improvement with a control group treated by a number of specialists. The study revealed that the null hypothesis of independence between patient improvement and type of clinic organization could be rejected and that the "comprehensive clinic" was positively associated with patient improvement.
- Subjects
EXPERTISE -- Social aspects; ORGANIZATIONAL structure; DIVISION of labor; PATIENT satisfaction; SOCIAL structure; MEDICAL care; MEDICAL personnel; HEALTH facilities; ORGANIZATIONAL effectiveness; ORGANIZATIONAL sociology research; PERFORMANCE management; INDUSTRIAL efficiency
- Publication
Administrative Science Quarterly, 1959, Vol 4, Issue 2, p197
- ISSN
0001-8392
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.2307/2390678