Which financial metric indicates how well a hospital utilizes its assets to generate income?

The metric that indicates how well a hospital utilizes its assets to generate income is the return on assets (ROA). This financial metric measures the efficiency of an organization in terms of how effectively it can convert its total assets into net income. A higher ROA signifies that the hospital is using its assets more efficiently to produce profits, which is essential for measuring performance in the healthcare sector.

In a hospital setting, assets can include everything from medical equipment and technology to facilities and human resources. By analyzing ROA, healthcare administrators can gauge how effectively these assets are being leveraged to support patient care while generating revenue. Therefore, it serves as a vital measure for evaluating operational performance and making strategic decisions aimed at improving financial health.

The other options reflect different aspects of financial performance that do not specifically focus on asset utilization. For instance, profit margin evaluates how much profit a company makes for every dollar of revenue generated, while return on equity focuses on the profitability from the shareholders' perspective. The debt ratio examines the proportion of a company’s assets that are financed by debt, without necessarily informing how well the assets are generating income. Thus, return on assets is the most relevant metric for assessing effective asset utilization in generating income for a hospital.