The role of the general hospital in health care: part two in a series on group practice.

The aim of this article is to provoke dialogue and to initiate change. Costs of health care are alarming. Our inability to respond effectively to the demand for total health care is frustrating. This is the second article in a series on hospitals. The next article will look at unmet health care needs and underutilized health care resources and seek to identify the group practice of medicine as the logical centre for orientation of other than general hospital health services.