The Process of Forging Lateral Linkages: A Hospital Experience

Organizations have responded in many ways to deal with the horizontal integration of their different segments. A variety of lateral linkage mechanisms like coordinators, teams, committees and matrix structures has been used. The paper presents the report of devising two such linkages in a hospital setting and analyses the process by which they were introduced. It traces the experiences of introducing new organisational forms in the out-patient services area of a hospital evolved in order to integrate the work of many functional departments. Learning from the experience are discussed and guidelines for similar induction efforts suggested.