Abstract
Many people contend that non-profit institutions develop haphazardly. On the surface there appears to be no plan or logical objectivity as to much of their operations or necessity for existence. In some cases this is true. Institutions, like industries, suffer periodically from inadequate management. Some tend to over-diversify in meeting a wide variety of educational, social, or health needs. Others cling to tradition serving a few without regard to economic consequences and the values of using resources to meet greater needs. Still others remain static utilizing the same facilities and serving the same needs within a world that is rapidly changing.|It has been the privilege of this researcher to serve in an institution, the Nebraska Methodist Hospital (Hospital), during a vital period in its development. Its leadership in IS59 recognized that two choices for its future were present. It could go through complete change and remain a leading hospital or it could remain static and meet present needs and drift into obscurity. Fortunately, it chose to remain a growing institution serving the present and providing for the future.|This paper is about the preliminary planning, establishment, and early development stages of the Eugene C. Eppley Care Center as a division of the Nebraska Methodist Hospitals. This complementary institution is utilizing the former hospital facilities which became vacant when the Hospital moved into a new building in west Omaha.|Chance plays an important part in the history of an enterprise, institution, or individual. If the former hospital facilities could have been reasonably sold, the sale most certainly would have occurred. However, the sale appeared unlikely from the outset of the Hospital's development program and it was necessary to continue to utilize the facilities.|Thus the concept in meeting health needs that ECEC was later to represent was included in the over-all plan. Concepts change during a decade of planning and building and the development of these two facilities was no exception.