Survey of health promotion in Pennsylvania nursing homes.

Health promotion programs for residents represent a discretionary organizational response to increased demand for service differentiation within the nursing home setting. More than half (57%) of facilities in a systematic sample of Pennsylvania nursing homes reported offering one or more health promotion programs. This article describes the variety of topical categories of programs. Guided by two alternative explanations of medical technology adoption--the key professional model versus the institutional/environmental model--an explanation is offered about why some facilities offer such programs and others do not.