Declining margins, excess capacity, mature product portfolio, bureaucratic overburden, poorly planned and executed diversification moves, rapid CEO turnover—a familiar litany of symptoms of U.S. industries in trouble. But this list describes not the airlines, retailers, basic manufacturing, real estate, or financial services; it describes the $200 billion American hospital industry.
A version of this article appeared in the May–June 1989 issue of Harvard Business Review.
