Attributes of Health Services As Factors in Program Implementation

Abstract

This paper investigates the relationship between attributes of thirty-two innovative health services and their level of implementation in a national sample of hospitals and health departments. It was found that services implemented in hospitals are primarily characterized by high payoff, a low rate of cost recovery, and low social approval. For health department services perceived primarily as having high divisibility, a high association with the preventive orientation of the department, and a relatively low payoff had a high level of implementation. The respective attribute patterns acounted for 58 per cent of the variance in the implementation of health services in hospitals and 50 per cent of the variance in health departments.