How has the hospital industry changed since 1936, and what indicators could be used to predict change? Researchers at Boston University compiled a data set comprising 1400 variables on approximately 1200 hospitals in 52 large and mid-size U.S. cities from 1936 to 1980. In this project, they updated the dependent variable -- whether the hospital has closed, relocated, merged, or remained open in place -- for the years 1990 and 1995. The researchers described the changes in hospital configuration in 52 cities from 1936 to 1995. They delineated how the different changes in hospital configuration vary by city size and region of the nation and analyze the predictors of hospital closings, relocations, and mergers between 1980 and 1990, between 1990 and 1995, and for the full fifteen years together. The objective of this study was to help policy makers better understand the meaning of how market and environmental factors affect hospital configurations.