Ninety percent of doctors are affiliated with at least one hospital, with the average physician affiliated with 1.7 hospitals, according to SK&A.
The Irvine, Calif.-based company has identified 1,143,420 hospital affiliations for the 680,000 physicians in its database.
SK&A recently enhanced its database of affiliations by surveying more than 235,000 U.S. medical offices over a six-month period in order to determine the unique connection between physicians and the hospitals within their sphere of practice or specialty.
“Understanding the distinct and multifaceted relationship between physicians and hospitals is absolutely essential to succeed in today’s competitive marketplace,” said Dave Escalante, SK&A’s vice president of data and information solutions. “High-quality affiliation data ... provides more insight into the complex relationships that influence and drive market behaviors.”
The surveys have also identified 320,197 physicians who are affiliated with group practices. This includes the ability to accurately identify the sites and personnel within:
- Integrated health systems and networks;
- Hospital systems and networks, defined by ownership or affiliation;
- Group practice networks;
- Affiliated nursing homes; and
- Affiliated healthcare providers, professionals, administrators, executives and office personnel to health systems, hospitals, group practices and nursing homes.
The information can be used to deliver more accurate online directories of physicians for patient searches, understand the influence health systems and hospitals have on their network, enhance coordinated marketing and sales-resource planning and execution and accurately define markets and their overall potential.