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Abstract
The purpose of this study was to develop an education model and program content for hospital administrators offering a data-based decision-making guideline for development of a women's center as a profitable and competitive venture for hospitals.
Eleven design features of a women's center, previously identified, were selected as predictors of utilization. These variables included aesthetics, comprehensiveness, hospital-based, separate identity, separate entrance, LDRPs Labor-Delivery-Recovery-Post-Partum Obstetrics), Infant Rooming-In, Physical Fitness, Education, Counseling, and Diagnostics.
A two-part questionnaire was administered by mail to a random sample of women (350) in four United States' regions and to hospital administrators (26) in those same regions. The women were asked to identify what would cause them to select, and actually use, a hospital's women's center. The administrators were asked to project what they thought the women in their region wanted. A Chi-square test of association and a discriminant analysis were used to test the relationship of perceptions held by the two groups.
The results showed that the facility itself had much control over the competitive nature of a women's health care facility. Results further revealed a significant disparity between what hospital providers perceived women to want in health care facilities designed specifically for their needs and what women actually deemed important.
The women health care consumers, while specific about what it would take to influence their preference and selection of a women's center, were correctly anticipated in only one instance by the administrators, agreeing only that a women's center should have a separate identity from the hospital. However, three-fourths of the administrators felt they understood their community's needs and expectations in women's health.
The significance of this study is the contribution of a data-based education model to assist hospitals contemplating movement into the women's market whether for the first time or as a market-capturing maneuver.
