Recent reviews of the literature demonstrate that there is little research providing insight into the nature of hospital communication. Using the model of the sociology of communication, five specific research questions can be generated about hospital communication: (1) How is information processed? (2) What communication is satisfying? (3) What are the internal feedback mechanisms of the organization? (4) What factors constrain communication? and (5) How is communication related to organizational effectiveness? An application of these questions to a review of the literature about hospital communication reveals that employees of hospitals have less of a need for information than employees of other organizations; that employee uncertainty is related to satisfaction with the organization; that individual responses to a lack of feedback include unionization, a method of formalizing feedback; that the perceptions of individuals employed in hospitals are constrained by the usual physical and historical factors such as age, educational level, and sex; and that there are no data to support the claim that there is a strong relationship between communication and hospital effectiveness. (HOD)