Comparing Hospital Mission Statement Content in a Changing Healthcare Field

Area of Science:

• Healthcare Administration
• Organizational Communication
• Public Health Policy

Background:

• Mission statements are crucial for communicating organizational purpose and priorities.
• Healthcare organizations use mission statements to define their core values and community commitments.
• Recent policy changes have increased the importance of community benefit in healthcare.

Purpose of the Study:

• To analyze the representation of key healthcare concepts (access, cost, quality) in hospital mission statements.
• To examine how community benefit is addressed in hospital mission statements.
• To compare mission statement content across different hospital ownership types.

Main Methods:

• Content analysis of mission statements from hospitals in Ohio, Florida, and Texas.
• Categorization of mission statement content based on predefined healthcare concepts.
• Statistical comparison of concept representation across investor-owned and not-for-profit hospitals.

Main Results:

• Quality was the most frequently represented concept (65%) in hospital mission statements.
• Access (21%), cost (21%), and community benefit (24%) were represented at lower rates.
• Investor-owned hospitals significantly emphasized quality and cost, while not-for-profit hospitals emphasized access and community benefit.

Conclusions:

• Hospital mission statements reflect varying priorities based on organizational ownership.
• Quality is a dominant theme, but access, cost, and community benefit also feature, albeit less frequently.
• Understanding these differences is vital for policy and stakeholder engagement in healthcare.