The purpose of this paper is to examine the efforts that scholars in a wide variety of disciplines have made to understand the communication dimension of the health care system. Sixty-nine doctoral research studies conducted between 1975 and 1977 were surveyed, highlighting the methodologies they used, the hypotheses they explored, and their subjects of investigation. The criteria used in the survey came from a summary of a similar study that evaluated hospital organizational communication research during the decade 1960-1970. A critical appraisal is made of the relevancy of the 69 research studies to the current communication problems that health care facilities encounter, and future research needs are discussed. The surveyed studies are listed by type and topic, as well as in bibliographic form. (RL)