The purpose of this study was to investigate and describe the relationship between the size of a hospital and the annual cost of its capital projects. Particular attention was given to certain other variables to determine if the presence of these variables influenced the capital spending patterns of the hospitals. The variables included: ownership or control of the hospital and presence of graduate medical education programs in the hospital. Data was gathered from two separate sources. The Certificate of Need (CON) applications of all Texas hospitals for the period from July 1, 1980 to June 30, 1983, were analyzed. This data set included 1,112 CON applications from the 474 hospitals in the state. The second source of data was a survey of a random sample of 222 Texas hospitals. A total of 141 responses to the survey was obtained. The survey data parallelled the response provided by hospitals in the Schedule A-7 of the annual Medicare Cost Report. The period covered by the survey was hospitals' fiscal years 1981, 1982 and 1983. Correlation analyses of the data from both of the sources were accomplished using both the Spearman and the Pearson techniques. The correlation analyses were run pairing numbers of beds with capital spending reported or with project costs requested. Costs were adjusted to constant year dollars. Correlation analysis was accomplished on subgroupings of data controlling for ownership of the hospital as well as the teaching status. Results of the analysis indicated significant levels of correlation between beds and capital costs for both the data taken as a whole and the groupings of data by hospital ownership or teaching status. Patterns were found to exist and cost per bed is described. The capital cost data based on annual project requests were not influenced by the CON regulation process. The cost per bed per annum was calculated for the various grouping of hospitals. These costs per bed were presented, for bed size groupings, ownership classifications and for teaching status. These benchmark figures provide insight into the annual capital costs of continued hospital operation. The cost of establishing new hospitals were not included in the study...
