On the morning of June 8, 2018, Associate Professor Peng Xiaosong of the Bauer School of Business at the University of Houston, USA, was invited to give a talk on an empirical study on the impact of US hospital mergers and acquisitions on its operational performance, entitled "Operational Impacts of Healthcare Merger and Acquisition: the Case of the US Hospitals". Teachers and students from related directions listened to Professor Peng’s wonderful report.

　　Traditional M&A research focuses on the synergies of finance, market share, and management. Few studies have explored M&A on business performance. Based on this, Prof. Peng used an empirical method to analyze the impact of the geographical location and service coincidence degree of the hospital M&A enterprises on the cost and service quality of the merged enterprises. The study found that mergers and acquisitions reduced the re-admission rate and operating expenses of the target hospital; the distance between the M&A hospital and the target hospital was negatively correlated with the service level of the target hospital after the merger; with the proximity of the distance, the positive relationship between service similarity and target hospital after the merger service level is weakening.