This study tried to investigate the causes of the transformation of district hospitals to long-term-care institutions. It analyzed the business strategies of district hospitals during the changing time. Four district hospitals and four long-term-care facilities transformed from hospitals were studies. The findings are: 1.District hospitals have adopted the method of increasing profits and reducing costs to cope with the difficulties and pressures resulted from the changes of national insurance policies and medical environment. 2.Long-term-care facilities have become the first priority of transforming a district hospital into a new type of management, when it comes to increasing the sales and profit. 3.Long-term-care facilities can virtually help increase business and profits of district hospitals, thus enhance the effectiveness of the hospital?s management. 4.To transform into a long-term-care facilities, a district hospital has to refine and reduce the size of its staff, make employees support one another Meanwhile, in view of sales and marketing, long-term-care patients shall be the main sources of patients. In addition, aggressively expanding community services and searching for potential sources are their major goals; in the field of medical service management, enhancing the qualities of both chronic diseases service and the elderly-related diseases services is a must; as to the financial aspect, district hospitals are considered more flexible and active in utilizing their capital. Based on this study, one can easily find that, the transformation from district hospitals to long-term-care facilities has benefited for the management of the former, in terms of not only hospital business, financial income, staff interactions but also the relation with communities. The outcome of this study shows an encouraging opportunity for district hospitals in Taiwan to strengthen their competitiveness for survival.
