Managing organizational mergers

Reimbursement, competition, and other significant trends in the health field have stimulated an increase in mergers among health care organizations. Mergers inevitably produce significant ramifications for clinicians. Nurses have discovered that mergers produce a greater need for efficient patient care, but not necessarily the mechanism or guidance for achieving this goal. Nursing administrators are responsible for minimizing the negative impact of a merger on nurses while simultaneously promoting merger goals. Despite this increase in mergers and the subsequent challenge to clinicians, little information is available about how to manage mergers. This article reviews the impact of the merger between the Veterans Administration Medical Center and the Kirtland Air Force Base Hospital in Albuquerque, New Mexico. A nursing perspective is used to understand what problems arise and how nursing administrators can effectively manage these problems.