Editorial: Physician-Hospital Partnership-What Really Counts?

As a corporate enterprise, the US hospital has no business without the physicians whose admission orders populate its beds and whose prescriptions generate its services. Hospitals neither admit patients nor discharge them, and virtually everything that happens in the hospital is derived ultimately from a physician’s order. The unique role of physicians is further recognized in the organized medical staff. The medical staff organization is meant to be self-policing, and also provides the nonphysician hospital board members with specialized technical expertise to help the board steward resources and assure the quality of care rendered within the facility.