The introduction of DRG-based prospective payment systems has resulted in many countries in the transformation of physician-driven hospitals into hospital factories that are operated according to business principles. The present study describes and explains this development from an interdisciplinary point of view. It is explained how the medical services of a hospital, firstly, become products using engineering methods and, secondly, become commodities using theoretical concepts well-established in economics. Then the management of an "industrialised" hospital is outlined from a business perspective. And, finally, the medical perspective is adopted to analyse the changed role of hospital physicians under these conditions.