Many will remember the segment of "The Sorcerer's Apprentice" in the Disney film Fantasia; it is a perfect metaphor for medical imaging as it stands today. The apprentice magician tests his nascent skills at sorcery by bringing common household items to life and putting them to work. At first, things go well, but eventually he loses control, and chaos ensues.
Medical imaging, too, could spin out of control. The benefits of imaging are undeniable. In the past thirty years, innovations like CT, MRI, and PET scanning have not only markedly reduced clinical risk for patients but have also transformed medical practice. Its costs, however, have grown explosively, to the point where imaging expenses have become a political issue. The aggressive adoption of imaging technology has raised issues about the role of inappropriate economic incentives and the role of defensive medicine in driving up medical costs.
Radiologists have utilized imaging technology to transform their practice from a pure diagnostic discipline into a curative one. Radiologists are among the most successful knowledge workers in the entire economy, leveraging digital information technology and Internet connectivity to become the first global medical discipline. Imaging is poised to make a further quantum advance - into the workings of the human cell and the molecular biology of complex disease.
Where is this remarkable technology, and the discipline which uses it, headed? How can society make the most responsible use of this powerful new tool? How will imaging and radiologists reshape medical practice? These questions will be answered by The Sorcerer's Apprentice.

The effective delivery of healthcare services is vital to the general welfare and well-being of a country's citizens. Financial infrastructure and policy reform can play a significant role in optimizing existing healthcare programs. Health Economics and Healthcare Reform: Breakthroughs in Research and Practice is a comprehensive source of academic material on the importance of economic structures and policy reform initiatives in modern healthcare systems. Highlighting a range of pertinent topics such as clinical costing, patient engagement, and e-health, this book is ideally designed for medical practitioners, researchers, professionals, and students interested in the optimization of healthcare delivery.

A Compromised Generation reveals how seemingly benign elements of American culture are making millions of children chronically ill, disabled, or dysfunctional. Children are being diagnosed with illnesses such as autism, asthma, allergies, and ADHD at a breathtaking rate. The etiology of autism continues to confound mainstream medicine, yet parents, medical researchers, and healthcare practitioners dedicated to unraveling the mystery are beginning to put the pieces of the puzzle into place. They have found that environmental factors that cause autism are the same ones causing epidemics of ADHD, juvenile diabetes, asthma, gastrointestinal disorders, and many other chronic illnesses. Although the specific pathophysiology of each individual child's illness varies, they all have the same basic underlying causes. It is a perfect storm of environmental factors including decades of pharmaceutical over-usage, toxic or nutritionally anemic diets, excessive exposure to environmental toxins, specific American habits and lifestyles, and excessive or improperly administered vaccines. A Compromised Generation provides details on how this epidemic can be reversed and how to prevent more children from becoming ill, supplying evidence that children can recover from chronic illnesses, including autism, by altering their environmental influences and by stepping outside of the traditional western medical paradigm.

When it comes to any current scientific debate, there are more than two sides to every story. Controversies in Science and Technology, Volume 4 analyzes controversial topics in science and technology-infrastructure, ecosystem management, food security, and plastics and health-from multiple points of view. The editors have compiled thought-provoking essays from a variety of experts from academia and beyond, creating a volume that addresses many of the issues surrounding these scientific debates. Part I of the volume discusses infrastructure, and the real meaning behind the term in today's society. Essays address the central issues that motivate current discussion about infrastructure, including writing on the vulnerability to disasters. Part II, titled "Food Policy," will focus on the challenges of feeding an ever-growing world and the costs of not doing so. Part III features essays on chemicals and environmental health, and works to define "safety" as it relates to today's scientific community. The book's final section examines ecosystem management. In the end, Kleinman, Cloud-Hansen, and Handelsman provide a multifaceted volume that will be appropriate for anyone hoping to understand arguments surrounding several of today's most important scientific controversies

Emerging infectious diseases may be defined as diseases being caused by pathogens only recently recognized to exist. This group of diseases is important globally, and the experience of the last 30 years suggests that new emerging diseases are likely to bedevil us. As the global climate changes, so changes the environment, which can support not only the pathogens, but also their vectors of transmission. This expands the exposure and effects of infectious disease and, therefore, the importance of widespread understanding of the relationship between public health and infectious disease.

This work brings together chaptersthat explain reasons for the emergence of these infectious diseases. These include the ecological context of human interactions with other humans, with animalsthat may host human pathogens, and with a changing agricultural and industrial environment, increasing resistance to antimicrobials, the ubiquity of global travel, and international commerce.

* Features the latest discoveries related to influenza with a newly published article by Davidson Hamer and Jean van Seventer

* Provides a listing of rarediseases that have become resurgent or spread their geographic distribution andare re-emergent

* Highlights dengue and malaria, as well as agents such as West Nile and other arboviruses that have spread to new continents causing widespread concerns

* Includes discussions of climate influencing the spread of infectious disease andpolitical and societal aspects"

This open access book introduces the National Health Insurance (NHI) system of Taiwan with a particular emphasis on its application of digital technology to improve healthcare access and quality. The authors explicate how Taiwan integrates its strong Information and Communications Technology (ICT) industry with 5G to construct an information system that facilitates medical information exchange, collects data for planning and research, refines medical claims review procedures and even assists in fighting COVID-19. Taiwan's NHI, launched in 1995, is a single-payer system funded primarily through payroll-based premiums. It covers all citizens and foreign residents with the same comprehensive benefits without the long waiting times seen in other single-payer systems. Though premium rate adjustment and various reforms were carried out in 2010, the NHI finds itself at a crossroads over its financial stability. With the advancement of technologies and an aging population, it faces challenges of expanding coverage to newly developed treatments and diagnosis methods and applying the latest innovations to deliver telemedicine and more patient-centered services. The NHI, like the national health systems of other countries, also needs to address the privacy concerns of the personal health data it collects and the issues regarding opening this data for research or commercial use. In this book, the 12 chapters cover the history, characteristics, current status, innovations and future reform plans of the NHI in the digital era. Topics explored include: Income Strategy Payment Structure Pursuing Health Equity Infrastructure of the Medical Information System Innovative Applications of the Medical Information Applications of Big Data and Artificial Intelligence Digital Health Care in Taiwan is essential reading for academic researchers and students in healthcare administration, health policy, health systems research, and health services delivery, as well as policymakers and public officials in relevant government departments. It also would appeal to academics, practitioners, and other professionals in public health, health sciences, social welfare, and health and biotechnology law.

Due to the non-biodegradability of plastic substances, coupled with poor waste management practices, plastic pollution has become a major environmental issue within the past decade. However, the negative effects of plastic pollution are rarely opposed, or the solutions proposed are costly or still damaging to the environment. New strategies must be undertaken to prevent irreparable environmental damage from disposable plastic products while maintaining and maximizing the benefits of plastics in specialized cases, such as medicine and public health. The Handbook of Research on Environmental and Human Health Impacts of Plastic Pollution is a collection of innovative research that assesses the negative impacts of plastic on the environment, human health, and ecosystems, and explores biotechnological approaches to solve plastic pollution. While highlighting topics including medical wastes, biodegradability, and phthalate exposure, this publication intends to provide readers with the latest solutions for reducing the burden of plastic on the environment. It is ideally designed for environmentalists, policymakers, instructors, researchers, graduate-level students, industrialists, and non-governmental organization professionals seeking current research on health and ecosystem concerns from the overconsumption of plastics.

After decades of the American "war on drugs" and relentless prison expansion, political officials are finally challenging mass incarceration. Many point to an apparently promising solution to reduce the prison population: addiction treatment. In Addicted to Rehab, Bard College sociologist Allison McKim gives an in-depth and innovative ethnographic account of two such rehab programs for women, one located in the criminal justice system and one located in the private healthcare system-two very different ways of defining and treating addiction. McKim's book shows how addiction rehab reflects the race, class, and gender politics of the punitive turn. As a result, addiction has become a racialized category that has reorganized the link between punishment and welfare provision. While reformers hope that treatment will offer an alternative to punishment and help women, McKim argues that the framework of addiction further stigmatizes criminalized women and undermines our capacity to challenge gendered subordination. Her study ultimately reveals a two-tiered system, bifurcated by race and class.

Atherosclerosis is responsible for the majority of heart attacks and is the root of coronary heart disease. Plaque buildup in the arteries causes atherosclerosis; luckily, however, through knowledge of our bodies and making small and large changes in the way we live, this deadly condition can be stopped and even reversed. "Dare to Live, " by author and naturopathic doctor Stephen W. Parcell, brings to the forefront natural, preventive, and medically proven strategies for combating coronary artery disease and its effect on our lives.This is not a diet book or an attempt to push a new fad; "Dare to Live" is a first-of-its-kind look at atherosclerosis from the naturopathic medical standpoint. Rather than just telling us what to do, Parcell presents in language accessible to everyone the causes of the disease, the rationale behind assessing risk for it, the purpose of the various tests he recommends, and the scientific evidence behind his recommendations.Understanding what our bodies are trying to tell us is the first big step in preventing heart disease, and the next big step-acting on our knowledge-can teach us more than we might believe possible. By pursuing natural, scientific methods, we can keep health close to our hearts and keep a major killer away from ourselves and our loved ones.

This book introduces the field of Responsible Innovation in Health (RIH) by clarifying its theoretical foundations and the practical approaches that enable the design and production of responsible medical devices, health and social care interventions, digital tools and solutions based on artificial intelligence. It brings a lasting impact on the ways innovation stakeholders think about and develop solutions to twenty-first century challenges, including the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

In a world now filled with more people who are overweight than underweight, public health and medical perspectives paint obesity as a catastrophic epidemic that threatens to overwhelm health systems and undermine life expectancies globally. In many societies, being obese also creates profound personal suffering because it is so culturally stigmatized. Yet despite loud messages about the health and social costs of being obese, weight gain is a seemingly universal aspect of the modern human condition. Grounded in a holistic anthropological approach and using a range of ethnographic and ecological case studies, Obesity shows that the human tendency to become and stay fat makes perfect sense in terms of evolved human inclinations and the physical and social realities of modern life. Drawing on her own fieldwork in the rural United States, Mexico, and the Pacific Islands over the last two decades, Alexandra A. Brewis addresses such critical questions as why obesity is defined as a problem and why some groups are so much more at risk than others. She suggests innovative ways that anthropology and other social sciences can use community-based research to address the serious public health and social justice concerns provoked by the global spread of obesity.

Taking into account toxicity levels at normal consumption levels, intake per kg bodyweight and other acknowledged considerations, each chapter in this book will be based on one or more proven examples. It is intended to provide specific examples and potential improvements to the safety of the world's food supply, while also increasing the amount of food available to those in undernourished countries. This book is designed to to provide science-based tools for improving legislation and regulation.
Benefits:
* Reduce amount of food destroyed due to difference in regulations between nations
* Positively impact the time-to-market of new food products by recognizing benefit of "one rule that applies to all"
* Use the comparison of regulations and resulting consequences to make appropriate, fully-informed decisions
* Employ proven science to obtain global consensus for regulations
* Understand how to harmonize test protocols and analytical methods for accurate measurement and evaluation
* Take advantage of using a risk/benefit based approach rather than risk/avoidance to maximize regulatory decisions

The health care system remains in crisis, and it's hurting the overall economy. Join an insider as he examines the problem and offers solutions.

Everyone knows that there are severe challenges when it comes to health care delivery and financing these days. Even so, not many people are offering viable solutions. Author Roger H. Strube, MD, spent thirty-six years in medical education, training, practice, and health care administration, and he's not satisfied with the status quo. He shares his personal experiences along with a vision of how to fix the problems associated with a broken system.

If you have been frustrated by excessive paperwork, high expenses, and poor treatment in the current health care system, Strube can help you understand the root causes behind the troubles. You'll discover
ways that the medical-industrial complex cripples the economy; a plan to get control of skyrocketing medical expenses while improving the quality of care; strategies to develop the right decision-making tools and protocols; a vision to bring the practice and administration of medicine into the electronic age.

All Americans must understand our core problems and realize what real reforms can be made to control costs and improve our health care system. Learn an insider's perspective on "Discovering the Cause and the Cure for American's Health Care Crisis."