Part I. Cost Efficiency and the Hospital System in the United States -- Chapter 1. Fuzzy Numbers: U.S. Hospital Accounting since the 1930s (Christy F. Chapin) -- Chapter 2. Resisting The Dream of Markets: Maryland’s All-Payer Hospital Rate-Setting System and the Persistence of Regulation in U.S. Health Care (Guian McKee) -- Chapter 3. A Brief Overview of the Development of the Nursing Home Sector in the United States (Andrew Simpson) -- Part II. Private Hospitals and Healthcare in Europe -- Chapter 4. “Poliklinik” in the German Democratic Republic after 1945: The unification of outpatient and inpatient care in hospitals (Sabine Schleiermacher) -- Chapter 5. Between Public and private: the business history of hospitals in Italy (1968-2018) (Daniela Felisini and Fernando Salsano) -- Chapter 6. The International Sanitary Service (ISS) and the Innovations in Mobile Hospitals and Auto-chirs during the Spanish Civil War, 1936-1939 (Carles Brasó Broggi) -- Chapter 7. The Emergence of Modern Hospital Planning and Administration in Spain (1966-1986) (Josep Barceló Prats) -- Chapter 8. Private hospital groups in Spain: business concentration and penetration in public health (Jeronia Pons and Margarita Vilar) -- Chapter 9. The Road to the National Health Service: Finance, Markets and the United Kingdom’s Universal Health System (Barry Doyle) -- Part III. Public and Private Initiative in Asia -- Chapter 10. The Rise of Hospital Dominance in China: Distribution of Resources and Activities Between Hospitals and Primary Care Facilities (1949-2018) (Jin Xu) -- Chapter 11. Japanese trading companies and hospital business in Asia since 2000 (Pierre-Yves Donzé) -- Part IV. The Construction of Healthcare Systems in Latin America and Africa -- Chapter 12. Hospital Systems in Latin America: Transformation and Change, 1960s–2020s (Paloma Fernández Pérez) -- Chapter 13. Immigration and health systems in Argentina. The case of the Spanish Hospital of Buenos Aires (Alejandro Fernández) -- Chapter 14. From missionaries to entrepreneurs in the business of hospitals in Africa (Grietjie Verhoef).

This book offers a business history of modern hospitals in the 20th century. Presenting case studies from around the world, it examines the long-term institutional and historical evolution of hospital organization and management models, applying a business history approach to do so. Drawing on reports from international organizations and other historical data, it explores the evolution, path dependencies, actors and institutions that have shaped the diversity of hospital organization and management models. At the same time, it analyzes the historical origins of major problems faced by today’s hospitals, such as cost-inefficiencies, lack of specialized human capital, etc. The contributing authors cover topics such as the history of hospital finance and accounting, hospital price regulation, entrepreneurship models, hospital privatization, and hospital governance. The book will appeal to scholars and students of economic and business history, and to anyone interested in the history of hospitals.