Back to Annual Meeting Page		American Public Health Association 133rd Annual Meeting & Exposition December 10-14, 2005 Philadelphia, PA

Abstract #105382

Kuo-Cherh Huang, DrPH, MBA¹, Ning Lu, PhD, MPH², Che-Ming Yang, MD, JD, PhD³, and Hui-Chih Chang, MHA³. (1) Graduate Institute of Health Care Administration, Taipei Medical University, 250 Wu-hsing Street, Taipei, Taiwan, +886-2-27361661 #3617, kchuang@tmu.edu.tw, (2) Department of Public Health, Western Kentucky University, 1 Big Red Way, Bowling Green, KY 42101-3576, (3) Department of Health Care Administration, Taipei Medical University, 250 Wu-hsing Street, Taipei, Taiwan

Taiwan has gradually implemented the National Health Insurance (NHI) program, a mandatory social insurance program launched by the Taiwan government in March 1995. NHI currently covers over 99% of the entire population and utilizes a variety of payment schemes to manage health care finance and delivery. Hospitals in Taiwan are striving to adapt with the changes brought upon by NHI. The objective of the study was to examine strategies adopted by Taiwan's hospitals to enhance their strategic competencies, and consequently improve performance, under the NHI program. A total of 495 structured questionnaires were sent to district and higher level hospitals in Taiwan in April 2004. Telephone or face-to-face interviews were conducted for hospitals that did not return the questionnaires, or provided insufficient information. To collect accurate and reliable data, only upper level managers or executives of the hospitals who are knowledgeable of their hospital practice were considered eligible to participate in the study, and were solicited to respond to the survey. As a result, a total of 194 eligible questionnaires were obtained with a response rate of 40%. Descriptive statistics, ANOVA, and multiple regression analysis were used in data analyses to determine the most likely adopted strategies and to examine the association between the strategies adopted and the performance of hospitals. Our results indicated that although the most prevalent strategy adopted by hospitals was the low cost (70.6%), followed by horizontal or vertical integration (both were 56.7%), respondents perceived differentiation and affiliation with a health care system most likely to be associated with the improved performance of hospitals, such as profit and growth potentials.

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