In this well-documented book, Alain Enthoven develops the ideas of consumer choice and managed competition of alternative health care financing and delivery systems, as well as describing ways to improve quality and reduce the cost of health care. He demonstrates how these ideas could be applied in the American employment-based health insurance model, how similar ideas have been introduced in the British National Health Service; how these ideas have been applied in the Netherlands; and the need for integrated comprehensive care systems. This unique anthology traces the development of two important and related themes. Firstly, the 'output' of the health services industry has been produced by disaggregated physicians, nurses and other health professionals, hospitals, drugs and device companies that somehow combine to serve the patient. Progress in quality and the economy requires the services of these components to be integrated into coherent systems in which the incentives of all providers are aligned with the needs and wants of patients for quality affordable care. Secondly, the book argues that the framework that can provide such incentives, is an appropriately designed form of market competition among systems of care seeking to serve value-conscious patients. Public officials, scholars and policy analysts from developing countries will find here a set of ideas for how to improve incentives for greater value for money. Students of health economics, policy and organization, as well as journalists and public officials interested in the use of public policy to improve efficiency in health care systems, will also find much to interest them in this book.

Implementation of guidelines in the health system is a major undertaking, especially in developing countries. An important constraint in guideline development in developing countries is that the guideline recommendations must suit local conditions and must make use of available resources. This is a challenge because the health systems of developing countries have a high burden of disease and little resources; therefore, guidelines must rely on cost-effective healthcare interventions. The BACIS program study was initiated to address some of these challenges in the dissemination and utilization of maternal health guidelines. The BACIS program was piloted, and the results showed that the BACIS program could assist in improving compliance of nurses with the national maternity care guidelines. This is an impressive finding and step forward for maternal healthcare in developing countries. Developing Maternal Health Decision Support Systems in Developing Countries discusses public health aspects of the design and implementation of clinical decision support systems in developing country contexts. Specifically, it focuses largely on the design and evaluation of the BACIS program in South Africa. This is supplemented with a conversation on the possible future research directions in the BACIS program study along with the outlook for clinical decision support systems in developing country contexts in general. This book is ideal for e-health system designers and implementers, managers and policymakers in the area of e-health in developing countries, personnel from NPOs and donor agencies, government officials, IT consultants, medical professionals, practitioners, stakeholders, researchers, academicians, and students who are interested in how decision support systems such as BACIS are being used to improve maternal health in developing countries.

Beyond Second Opinions is both an expose of the risks, errors, and distortions surrounding fertility medicine and an authoritative guide for people seeking treatment. Accessible, comprehensive, and extremely well-informed, this book takes the reader beyond hype to the hard data on diagnoses and treatments. Judith Steinberg Turiel, a consumer health activist and herself a veteran of fertility treatments, uses the most up-to-date medical literature to shed new light on difficult decisions patients face today and on reproductive questions society must begin to address now. Those who are seeking a more balanced perspective to help them make better, more informed decisions will find a wealth of information about current reproductive interventions-from simple fertility pills to dazzling experimental options-as well as a discussion of the non-medical forces (economic and political) that shape an individual's treatment choices and reproductive outcomes. Despite quantities of information showered upon patients, they remain woefully misinformed; some fertility treatments may actually reduce chances for a successful pregnancy and threaten a patient's health. Turiel looks beyond surface claims to the real information, often uncovering counterintuitive findings and sometimes scandalous revelations. She exposes a realm of unregulated expansion, unscientific experimentation, and recent scandal over stolen embryos. Weaving together first-hand accounts, compelling stories, a range of scientific information, and lively anecdotes, Turiel addresses the persistent gulfs that separate medical professionals and health care consumers. In the process she arms laypeople with what they might not learn about infertility practices from doctors, patient education brochures, and the newspaper. This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press's mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1998.

Migration is now firmly embedded as a leading global policy issue of the twenty-first century. Whilst not a new phenomenon, it has altered significantly in recent decades, with changing demographics, geopolitics, conflict, climate change and patterns of global development shaping new types of migration. Against this evolving backdrop, this Handbook offers an authoritative overview of key debates underpinning migration and health in a contemporary global context. The first major handbook in this field, this Handbook of Migration and Health provides a comprehensive global overview of issues relating to migration and health. The Handbook is organised into six main sections: theories and models of migration; rights and deservingness; vulnerability and precarity; specific healthcare needs and priorities; healthcare provision; and transnational and diasporic networks. Chapters focus on a wide range of migrant groups including refugees, asylum seekers, trafficked people, international students, healthcare workers, and diasporic communities. Bringing together the contributions of 58 leading researchers and drawing on case studies and examples from across the globe, the Handbook is intended as a scholarly, yet accessible reference tool for researchers, students, and practitioners interested in the field of migration and health. Contributors include: S. Bacci, L. Baldassar, C. Bennouna, J. Botfield, E. Chase, J. Cook, E. Duffell, R. Evans, J. Gideon, K. Hall, A.-C. Hoyez, D. Ingleby, H. Jayaweera, M.-A. Karlsen, M. Kilke, R. Labonte, Y. Lu, S. Mayell, L. Manderson, M. McKee, J. McLaughlin, C. McMichael, L. Merla, S. Meyer, P. Mladovsky, L. Newman, C. Newman, T. Noori, L. Nunez Carrasco, A. Odone, D. Oksen, S. Oram, M. Ormond, G. Ottosdottir, C. Packer, A. Pharris, O. Razum, B. Rechel, A. Reeske, A. Reid, V. Runnels, A. Sandgren, R. Shadwick, D. Sime, J. Spallek, D.L. Spitzer, L. Stark, J.E. Suk, A. Tianbo Zhang, T. Tillmann, F. Thomas, K. Vasey, J. Vearey, G.A. Williams, R. Wilding, S.S. Willen, H. Zeeb, A. Zwi

Increased use of artificial intelligence (AI) is being deployed in many hospitals and healthcare settings to help improve health care service delivery. Machine learning (ML) and deep learning (DL) tools can help guide physicians with tasks such as diagnosis and detection of diseases and assisting with medical decision making. This edited book outlines novel applications of AI in e-healthcare. It includes various real-time/offline applications and case studies in the field of e-Healthcare, such as image recognition tools for assisting with tuberculosis diagnosis from x-ray data, ML tools for cancer disease prediction, and visualisation techniques for predicting the outbreak and spread of Covid-19. Heterogenous recurrent convolution neural networks for risk prediction in electronic healthcare record datasets are also reviewed. Suitable for an audience of computer scientists and healthcare engineers, the main objective of this book is to demonstrate effective use of AI in healthcare by describing and promoting innovative case studies and finding the scope for improvement across healthcare services.

Cost-benefit analysis is the only method of economic evaluation that can effectively indicate whether a health care treatment or intervention is worthwhile. In this thoroughly updated and revised second edition, Robert Brent expands the scope of the field by including the latest concepts and applications throughout all regions of the world. This book attempts to strengthen the link between cost-benefit analysis and the mainstream health care evaluation field, which is dominated by non-economists. The need to build a bridge between the two is more important than ever before, as the general understanding of cost-benefit analysis appears to have regressed.Case studies are used throughout to explain and illustrate the various methodologies being examined. In addition, the author now covers more of the statistical requirements that are necessary to understand and carry out health care evaluations, and follows an applied economics approach. Ultimately, he resolves a number of disputes and makes some new, but subtle, contributions by reinterpreting, correcting and extending existing work. The book covers the topic in an accessible manner, from the foundations to the frontiers of the field, and clearly explains all the necessary economic principles along the way. Cost-Benefit Analysis and Health Care Evaluations, Second Edition will be invaluable to students and researchers of health economics, public policy and health care policy, as well as policymakers and health care practitioners. It can also be used as a comprehensive introductory text by anyone with an interest in cost-benefit analysis. From this perspective, the new additional final chapter is particularly useful as it supplies a summary of CBA that highlights the main conclusions of the text in a single chapter. Contents: 1. Introduction to Health Care Evaluation 2. Cost Minimization and the Definition of 'Cost' 3. Types of Costs and their Measurement 4. External Costs 5. Social Cost of Taxation 6. Fundamentals of Cost-effectiveness Aanalysis 7. Further Issues of Cost-effectiveness Analysis 8. Fundamentals of Cost utility Analysis 9. Measuring Utilities in Cost utility Analysis 10. Cost-utility Analysis and Equity 11. Cost-benefit Analysis and the Human Capital Approach 12. Cost-benefit Analysis and Willingness to Pay 13. Cost-benefit Analysis and Equity 14. Methods for Measuring the Benefits of HIV/AIDS Interventions Index

Smart healthcare technology improves the diagnosis and treatment of patients, provides easy access to medical facilities and emergency care services, and minimizes the gaps between patients and healthcare providers. While clinical data protection remains a major challenge, innovations such as the internet of medical things and smart healthcare systems increase the efficiency and quality of patient care. Healthcare technology can only become faster, more profitable, and more flexible as additional research on its advancements is conducted and collected. Smart Medical Data Sensing and IoT Systems Design in Healthcare is an essential reference source that focuses on robust and easy solutions for the delivery of medical information from patients to doctors and explores low-cost, high-performance, highly efficient, deployable IoT system options in healthcare systems. Featuring research on topics such as hospital management systems, electronic health records, and bio-signals, this book is ideally designed for technologists, engineers, scientists, clinicians, biomedical engineers, hospital directors, doctors, nurses, healthcare practitioners, telemedical agents, students, and academicians seeking coverage on the latest technological developments in medical data analysis and connectivity.

In a powerful blending of memoir and practical strategies from a medical doctor's perspective, The Gift of Caring: Saving Our Parents - and ourselves - from the Perils of Modern Healthcare reveals the hidden side of modern healthcare practices for aging Americans. This ground-breaking book, co-written by award-winning author Marcy Houle and nationally-recognized geriatrician and public health advocate, Elizabeth Eckstrom MD MPH, sheds new light on aging by showing it from twin perspectives: the story of a daughter desperately seeking help for the parents she loves, and a geriatrician who offers life-changing strategies that can protect our loved ones and ourselves. Today, for many older adults, the medical delivery system is confusing, fragmented, and ill-equipped to provide comprehensive, person-centered care. Under our current healthcare model, thousands of aging persons face unnecessary suffering, hospitalizations and nursing home stays, and even preventable death. Seniors and families often feel powerless as they travel this sad journey. Not having knowledge of aging's changes, they resign themselves to believing there is nothing anyone can do to help, while some health care professionals simply write off symptoms seniors endure as "just old age." But as Marcy Houle discovered in caring for her parents, many of the problems often are not "just old age." Further, the real issue is not that the answers to ease suffering don't exist. Rather, what we need to know is generally not available to the general public. Even more concerning, many health care professionals have had little or no training in the care of older adults. The Gift of Caring hopes to change that. It is written to give empowerment to all older adults, family members, and health care professionals, by sharing much needed knowledge and practical strategies. The Gift of Caring shows the best ways to advocate for our parent's health care ... and our own ... by giving us the tools we need to insist upon the better way. Your parents and you deserve the best healthcare as you age- But there are so many reasons why that's not happening.You can change that.

With the growing use of new technologies and artificial intelligence (AI) applications, intelligent systems can be used to manage large amounts of existing data in healthcare domains. Having more intelligent methods for accessing data allows medical professionals to more efficiently identify the best medical practices and more concrete solutions for diagnosing and treating a multitude of rare diseases. Intelligent Systems for Healthcare Management and Delivery provides relevant and advanced methodological, technological, and scientific approaches related to the application of sophisticated exploitation of AI, as well as providing insight into the technologies and intelligent applications that have received growing attention in recent years such as medical imaging, EMR systems, and drug development assistance. This publication fosters a scientific debate for new healthcare intelligent systems and sophisticated approaches for enhanced healthcare services and is ideally designed for medical professionals, hospital staff, rehabilitation specialists, medical educators, and researchers.

In The Coronavirus Crisis and Its Teachings: Steps towards Multi-Resilience Roland Benedikter and Karim Fathi first describe the pluri-dimensional characteristics of the Coronavirus crisis. Then they draw the pillars for a more "multi-resilient" Post-Corona world including socio-political recommendations of how to generate it. The Coronavirus crisis proved to be a bundle crisis consisting of multiple, interconnected crisis dimensions. Before Corona, most concepts of a "resilient society" implied a rather isolated focus on only one crisis at a time. Future preparedness in the 21st century will require a multi- and transdisciplinary risk-management concept that the authors call "multi-resilience". "Multi-resilience" means to systematically enhance universal resilience competencies of societies, such as collective intelligence or overall responsiveness, being appliable to pluri-dimensional crisis contexts. If the Coronavirus crisis in retrospect will have contributed to implement multi-resilience, then it will ultimately have contributed to progress. This volume includes a Foreword by Jan Nederveen Pieterse and an Afterword by Manfred B. Steger.

Scientific evidence from different countries around the globe shows that those with low or inadequate health-related knowledge and skills include all ages, social, and economic backgrounds. The consequences of this inadequacy simultaneously affect individuals, healthcare systems, and society in many ways, such as healthcare quality and cost. Research on health literacy can provide insight on how to improve the communication of health issues, raise awareness, and promote the lifelong learning of patients and healthcare professionals. Optimizing Health Literacy for Improved Clinical Practices examines the latest advances in providing and helping patients and medical professionals to understand basic health information and the services that are most appropriate. Featuring coverage on a broad range of topics such as patient engagement, mobile health, and health communication, this book is geared towards medical professionals, hospital adminstrators, healthcare providers, academicians, and researchers in the field.

'Light' from low level laser therapy, through a process called photobiomodulation (PBM), has been in existence in supportive care in cancer, in particular in the management of oral mucositis (OM) in patients undergoing chemotherapy, radiation therapy and haematopoietic stem cell transplantation. In this book the authors attempt to portray the current status of the supportive care interventions that are possible with PBM using low level laser therapy (LLLT) in patients undergoing cancer treatment for solid tumours, harmatological malignancies, and head and neck cancers.

Ethics of Inclusion captures fairness and social justice for all from an ethical perspective in our post-pandemic world. The book discusses inequality in Healthcare, Economics & Finance, Education, Digitalization, and the Environment, in order to envision economics of diversity and a transition to a more inclusive society. A wide-ranging approach addresses issues of inequality in access to innovations such as telemedicine and artificial intelligence, economic gains of robotics, and big data insights. A rising performance gap between the finance sector and the real economy opens in the post-COVID-19 era, with system-inherent inequality, given elevated inflation levels and disparate impacts of low interest rate regimes around the globe. Education offers social transfer hubs and inclusion potential for societal advancement and international development. The transition to a greener economy is addressed in an analysis of the Green New Deal and European Green Deal including the Sustainable Finance Taxonomy. The book sets out a hopeful agenda for equality and social justice to deliver a post-pandemic Renaissance.

Powerful new approaches and advances in medical systems drive increasingly high expectations for healthcare providers internationally. The form of digital healthcare - a suite of new technologies offering significant benefits in cost and quality - allow institutions to keep pace with society's needs. This book covers the need for responsible innovation in this area, exploring the issues of implementation as well as potential negative consequences to ensure digital healthcare delivers for the benefit of all stakeholders. This book offers a considered view on what a responsible innovation process might involve and how this will enable multiple stakeholders - users, medics, businesses and policymakers - to create a system of delivering better care at lower costs. Illustrated by international case studies, the contributing authors explore the dimensions of responsible innovation with patient engagement and the ways in which this can lead to better design, enhanced diffusion of knowledge and improvement in healthcare. A much-needed exploration of the role of innovation in healthcare with patients in mind, this book will be essential for academics in innovation, ethics, social entrepreneurship and healthcare studies.