ost hospitals were nonprofit enterprises. Thus, they were not products of strict business entrepreneurship in the usual sense of a person or persons setting up a business to provide a good or service and earn a profit by doing so. Rather, hospitals were established by what might be called "philanthropic entrepreneurship," in which a person or persons persuaded donors, or a community, that a facility was worth supporting. Hospital operators and investors received some material rewards honaria for board members, buildings named after major donors but running hospitals was not in and of itself a way to make money.
Nevertheless, the nonprofit hospital had many of the characteristics of a business. Payments by patients would not serve to provide a profit, but would tend to lessen the drain on endowments, paying most operating expenses and leaving the endowments largely for capital projects. Thus, a hospital that could fill its beds would be more economically viable than one with a poorer "load factor."
What really made the traditional hospital unique, however, was how its services were provided. The hospital did not, for the most part, really provide
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