Capital projects funding for psychiatric hospitals, 1972-1981

Data on capital projects funding in nonfederal U.S. hospitals in the years 1972, 1977, 1978, and 1981 were analyzed to identify changes in the number, cost, and funding sources of capital projects in public and private psychiatric hospitals and to compare them with changes in public and private general hospitals. The study identified three major trends over the ten-year period: a larger decrease in the number of capital projects and a larger increase in the average cost per project in public psychiatric hospitals compared with other types of hospitals, and a greater dependence by all types of hospitals on borrowed money to fund capital projects. The author suggests that the decreased number and higher cost of capital projects in public psychiatric hospitals may be related to the hospitals' increasing reliance over the ten-year period on debt financing rather than on government funding. Because of the high costs involved in debt financing--costs unrelated to the size of the debt--these hospitals may have consolidated their building projects.