A model of strategic marketing alliances for hospices: horizontal alliances.

This article develops two previous research efforts. William J. Winston (1994, 1995) has proposed a set of strategies by which health care organizations can benefit from forging strategic alliances. Raadt and Self (1997) have proposed a classification model of alliances including horizontal, vertical, internal and osmotic. In the first of two articles, this paper presents a model of horizontal alliances. The subsets include transregional, service mergers, networks, venture capital investments, trade and professional organizations, and promotional alliances. Advantages and disadvantages of each are discussed.