An in-depth overview of the emerging concept; Mobile Health (mHealth), mHealth Multidisciplinary Verticals links applications and technologies to key market and vendor players. It also highlights interdependencies and synergies between various stakeholders which drive the research forces behind mHealth. The book explores the trends and directions where this vertical market is headed. Divided into nine sections, the book covers a number of multidisciplinary verticals within the field of mHealth such as: Preventive and curative medicine Consumer and patient-centric approaches Psychological, behavioral, and mental verticals Social perspectives Education, adoption, and acceptance Aged care and the aging population Regional, geographical, and public-health perspectives Technology implications Cloud applications The book collates emerging and diverse mHealth applications into a single resource. The result of extensive research, the book is a collaborative effort between experts from more than 20 countries, who have been carefully reviewed and selected by the team of reviewers. It takes a multidisciplinary approach to health informatics and provides a roadmap to current and future directions of mHealth.

Although China's new healthcare reform, launched in 2009, has achieved remarkable results in improving China's medical and healthcare system, it is recognised that there is still room for further improvement. This is especially important as China's population ages, the prevalence of chronic diseases increases and environment-related health risks worsen. This book reports on a major international research project which examined health trends, modes of health promotion, health finance systems, medical and healthcare innovations and environment-related health risks in China. For each of these key areas, the book considers the current situation in China and likely future trends, explores best practice from a wide range of foreign countries and puts forward proposals for improvements. Overall, the book provides a major assessment of China's medical and healthcare system and how it should be reformed.

When you can't breathe, nothing else matters. If you are one of the 15 million Americans diagnosed with Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD), you know what it's like to struggle to breathe. You know what it's like to sacrifice your favourite activities to a chronic illness that changes everything from your work life to how you take your meals. But there is help,and hope. Respiratory Therapist Dawn Lesley Fielding shares the program she has used in her own practice,with an astonishing 100% success rate,offering techniques and tools to make breathing easier and improve your overall health. This practical, accessible, step-by-step guide explains...what COPD is and how it affects your breathingthe most up-to-date medication and treatment optionshow to track symptoms and medicationsessential breathing techniques to improve oxygen intakestrategies for healthy nutrition and gentle exercisewhat to eat and what to avoid, with lists of key COPD foodsWith stories from others with this condition, easy charts for managing everything from your medications to your symptoms, as well as hands-on tips for you and your loved ones, The COPD Solution is your guide to reclaiming your life and living fully with COPD.

Precision oncology offers a hugely exciting opportunity to personalise cancer treatments and prevention for the benefit of the individual but does present great challenges at present, both scientific and ethical. We now have the capacity to identify the abnormalities in genes and proteins that introduce the risk of individuals developing cancer and are responsible for the classical behaviour of a cancer. Having done this, healthcare teams are able to better diagnose cancer, evolve preventive strategies, and develop and deploy targeted cancer therapies. Precision oncology involves better prevention strategies and ensuring that therapeutic interventions can be concentrated on those who will benefit, reducing expense and sparing side effects for those who will not. This new educational resource provides an overview of the latest progress in developing precision oncology, plus a ground breaking collection of case studies ("Problems") showing precision oncology in practice. It includes a clear, readable summary of developments, alongside real-life case studies, providing a valuable update for all involved in the oncology community.

This title was first published in 2002. Most of those working in health services are aware of scarcity and the need for choice, and many also know that health sector choices in the future may be made on a "cost per quality-adjusted-life-year" (QALY) basis. This volume explains health service choice, focusing in particular on the QALY success story, and the merits and drawbacks of this measure are explained. On the basis of some of the problems identified, a new QALY-based approach to resource allocation is developed, and other methods of priority setting are explained, ranging from heart surgery to Alzheimer's Disease. The author explains the problems of health sector choice from first principles, in an approach that should be particularly useful to healthcare professionals, pharmaceutical industry managers, and students of economics.

Organizations around the world are using Lean to redesign care and improve processes in a way that achieves and sustains meaningful results for patients, staff, physicians, and health systems. Lean Hospitals, Third Edition explains how to use the Lean methodology and mindsets to improve safety, quality, access, and morale while reducing costs, increasing capacity, and strengthening the long-term bottom line.This updated edition of a Shingo Research Award recipient begins with an overview of Lean methods. It explains how Lean practices can help reduce various frustrations for caregivers, prevent delays and harm for patients, and improve the long-term health of your organization.The second edition of this book presented new material on identifying waste, A3 problem solving, engaging employees in continuous improvement, and strategy deployment. This third edition adds new sections on structured Lean problem solving methods (including Toyota Kata), Lean Design, and other topics. Additional examples, case studies, and explanations are also included throughout the book.Mark Graban is also the co-author, with Joe Swartz, of the book Healthcare Kaizen: Engaging Frontline Staff in Sustainable Continuous Improvements, which is also a Shingo Research Award recipient. Mark and Joe also wrote The Executive's Guide to Healthcare Kaizen.

The advancement of the life sciences and the technosciences has enhanced the longevity of citizens in the Western world, and half of the generation born in the first decade of the new millennium is now expected to live to the age of one hundred years. In a society with such longevity and affluence, consumption of health-related goods and services such as pharmaceuticals and scanning procedures may be seen as a sustainable source of income for the industries that promote it. Though the healthcare sector has traditionally been organized in the public sector in Europe and in the private sector in the US, the recent advancement of new therapies and direct-to-consumer marketing have opened up new streams of consumption and revenue for health care goods and services around the globe. This book examines the so-called 'bioeconomy' as a new economic and commercial field that emphasizes the management of individual life, including the regulation and control of weight and food consumption and other issues pertaining to individual well-being. In addition, the bioeconomy includes a variety of practices based on commercial interests such as organ donations, reproductive medicine and technologies, and what has been referred to as the tissue economy - the various forms of trade with human tissues. Author Alexander Styhre provides a thorough introduction to the bioeconomy, exploring this new and unique intersection of the life sciences and the technosciences with more traditional consumer markets.

Quarantine has shaped our world, yet it remains both feared and misunderstood. It is our most powerful response to uncertainty, but it operates through an assumption of guilt: in quarantine, we are considered infectious until proven safe. An unusually poetic metaphor for moral and mythic ills, quarantine means waiting to see if something hidden inside of us will be revealed.

Until Proven Safe tracks the history and future of quarantine around the globe, chasing the story of emergency isolation through time and space – from the crumbling lazarettos of the Mediterranean to the hallways of the CDC, to the corporate giants hoping to disrupt the widespread quarantine imposed by Covid-19 before the next pandemic hits through surveillance and algorithmic prediction.

Yet quarantine is more than just a medical tool: Geoff Manaugh and Nicola Twilley drop deep into the Earth to tour a nuclear-waste isolation facility beneath the New Mexican desert, strip down to nothing but protective Tyvek suits to see plants stricken with a disease that threatens the world’s wheat supply, and meet NASA’s Planetary Protection Officer tasked with saving the Earth from extraterrestrial infections.

The result is part travelogue, part intellectual history – a book as compelling as it is definitive, and one that could not be more urgent or timely.

Taking a 'decentred' approach to the analysis of health policy means being attentive to the historical contingencies and circumstances within which reforms are located, the influence of dominant or elite narratives in the shaping of policy, the local traditions and customary practices through which policies are mobilised, and the way local actors contest, negotiate and co-construct policy. This book offers a unique analysis of the changing landscape of healthcare reform in Britain, as an example of decentralized reforms across the developed world. The collection is framed by the recognition that healthcare reform has resulted in variegated and decentralized forms of governance. The chapters look at distinct aspects of reform within the British NHS to bring to light the influence of local histories, traditions, coalitions, and values, in the remaking of a national healthcare system. Each chapter focuses on a different aspects of reform, and in others developing cross-national and comparative analysis. However, each offers a unique contribution and analysis of contemporary theories of healthcare governance. This book will be of key interest to scholars, students and practitioners in healthcare, health and social policy, political science, and public management and governance.

Good teamwork ensures the close collaboration and coordination between professional groups and across disciplinary boundaries. This is particularly important in healthcare centres and clinics admitting complicated patient cases, but contrary to what many healthcare organisations seem to believe, effective teamwork does not happen automatically. It needs to be successfully trained and practiced. Teamwork in Medical Rehabilitation provides a guide to efficient teamwork in professional healthcare. Showcasing the practice of medical rehabilitation in Sweden, the book describes how to create, develop, nourish and organise a team. Medical rehabilitation in Sweden is a discipline filled by not only doctors and nurses, but also physiotherapists, occupational therapists, psychologists, social workers, speech therapists and dieticians. Using these multi-professional teams as clinical case studies, the book contains many practical examples from different rehabilitation care areas. This book will prove to be invaluable to healthcare professionals and students as effective collaboration is essential to good clinical outcomes. Managers will also find this a worthy read thanks to its understanding of how working conditions affect good teamwork.

With unintended harm during hospital care costing billions of dollars to the world economy, not to mention millions of deaths each year, it's no wonder the issue is equally front and center in the minds of healthcare providers and the public. Although the issue has been tackled in journal articles and conference proceedings, there are very few books on the topic. And none consider how methods and techniques developed in the area of engineering can handle safety and human error-related problems. Until now. Written by an expert with vast know-how in engineering management, design, reliability, safety, and quality, Patient Safety: An Engineering Approach brings together the pertinent information scattered throughout books and journals, eliminating the need to consult many different and diverse sources to find what you need. B.S. Dhillon draws on his real-world experience to demonstrate how to handle patient safety-related problems using engineering techniques and backs this up with references for further reading at the end of each chapter. He sets the stage with introductory chapters on mathematical, patient safety, and human factors concepts essential to understanding materials presented in subsequent chapters. Dhillon's clear, concise discussion of the topics presents the information in such a way that no previous knowledge is required to understand the contents, yet he does not present it at a merely rudimentary level. He brings a fresh approach and engineering perspective to the issues, giving you a new tool kit for performing patient safety-related analysis, designing better medical systems/devices, and handling patient safety-related problems from an engineering perspective.

This book gathers together recent international research in intellectual disability (ID), examining the diverse modes of existence that characterise living with intellectual disabilities in the 21st century. Ranging from people with no speech and little mobility who need 24-hour care, to people who marry or hold down jobs, this book moves beyond the typical person with ID imagined by public policy: healthy, with mild ID and a supportive family, and living in a welcoming community. The book is divided into three sections. The first, 'A richer picture of people and relationships', expands our understanding of different people and lifestyles associated with ID. The second section, 'Where current policies fall short', finds that Supported Living provides just as 'mediocre' a form of care as group homes, and concludes that services for people with challenging behaviour are unrelated to need. The contributors' research identifies no effective employment support strategies, as well as technological and legal changes that prevent organisations from employing people with ID. With nearly a quarter of this population in poor health, the contributors reflect on whether 'social model' approaches should be allowed to trump medical considerations. The third section, 'New thinking about well-being', reveals that being old, poor, and living alone increases health risk, and that medication administration is significantly more complex for people with ID. Moving beyond 20th century certainties surrounding intellectual disability, this book will be of interest to those studying contemporary issues facing those living with ID, as well as those studying public health policy more widely. The chapters in this book were originally published in issues of the Journal of Intellectual & Developmental Disability.

Close collaboration across agencies and international borders is mandatory for public health officials. A powerful tool for sharing knowledge, knowledge management (KM) can help public health professionals quickly collaborate and disseminate knowledge for solving public health issues worldwide. The latest initiatives for reforming healthcare have put the spotlight on the need for maximizing resources. In addition to providing a platform for sharing knowledge, KM can help healthcare professionals do more with less. One tool, two problems solved. Yet the sharing of knowledge and KM continues to be a major challenge in the public health field. Knowledge Management in Public Health provides a general introduction to KM and social networking in the public health arena. The book begins with coverage of basic principles, components, and methodologies as well as trends and key issues in public health. It includes ten case studies illustrating applications of KM and social networking in public health. The chapters are written by leading individuals from organizations involved in applying KM in public health worldwide. The editors and chapter authors explore the many elements of KM, delineating how and why to start such an initiative. They provide specific examples of the development and value-added benefits of KM in a variety of public health environments. Tough or quick decision making has always benefitted enormously from knowledge based on the maximum amount of pertinent information available at the time-this has not changed. What is new in the present public health environment is the need to do this more often, with fewer personnel available, and increased expectations relative to the services expected by the public. Better use of information under a KM system is well suited to serve that purpose. This book explores the many ways to use KM to anticipate potential health issues and quickly resolve key incidents when they occur.

Connected Health is the most dynamic phenomenon in healthcare technology today. From smartphones and tablets to apps, body sensors and telemedicine, Connected Health promises to stir foundational shifts in healthcare quality and delivery. This is a watershed moment in healthcare - the Connected Health ecosystem is dramatically impacting healthcare's stakeholders, from patients to C-Suite executives, and is delivering on the tri aim: quality care, coordination and cost savings. This new book conducts a focused examination of wearables as an explosive niches of the Connect Health market. Covering a range of issues from wearable applications in the consumer and provider spaces, to emerging technology solutions and hurdles to successful deployment, this book also provides an engaging discussion about wearables as a change agent of healthcare delivery. The discussion continues with and examination of the interplay between solutions like wearables in the Healthcare Internet of Things ("IoT") landscape. The book also explores the scope and trajectory of the Connected Health ecosystem through a combination of expert commentary and selected case studies. It serves as an educational resource as well as a practical guide in strategizing and executing a Connected Health market and product strategy.

Now in its Third Edition, this best-selling textbook continues to support you on your journey from being an emerging registered healthcare professional through to becoming a competent care manager. Action points, case studies and strong practice guidelines enable you to understand how leadership and management theory applies to the care you deliver in a wide range of care settings. Fully updated throughout, the new edition includes: More case studies and examples from a wide range of care settings and countries. New key topics such as dimensions of leadership, NHS Change Model, transition to registered practitioner and revalidation requirements, emotional intelligence and resilience. A companion website with access to further case studies, journal articles and web links. This book is essential for nursing, health and social care students taking modules on leadership, management and transition to practice in their final year, as well as for newly qualified professionals or those seeking to refresh their skills.

Rapid changes in healthcare and public health offer tremendous opportunities to focus on process improvement. Public health departments and agencies increasingly work collaboratively with hospitals and other community partners to promote knowledge and improve collective impact through public and private sector coalitions. Solving Population Health Problems through Collaboration brings together population health experts and leaders to examine evidence-based intervention strategies, case studies in health departments and hospitals, health equity issues, core competencies, public health campaigns, step-by-step collaboration advice, and much more. Each chapter is written by a population health leader shaped by his or her experience implementing change in a community's health, to demonstrate innovative methods and tools for building and leading sustainable community coalitions to effect real change. Designed to prepare population health workers in public health and healthcare settings to develop strategies for improved population health, this book is required reading for public health managers and health administrators as well as students enrolled in population health courses.

Rapid changes in healthcare and public health offer tremendous opportunities to focus on process improvement. Public health departments and agencies increasingly work collaboratively with hospitals and other community partners to promote knowledge and improve collective impact through public and private sector coalitions. Solving Population Health Problems through Collaboration brings together population health experts and leaders to examine evidence-based intervention strategies, case studies in health departments and hospitals, health equity issues, core competencies, public health campaigns, step-by-step collaboration advice, and much more. Each chapter is written by a population health leader shaped by his or her experience implementing change in a community's health, to demonstrate innovative methods and tools for building and leading sustainable community coalitions to effect real change. Designed to prepare population health workers in public health and healthcare settings to develop strategies for improved population health, this book is required reading for public health managers and health administrators as well as students enrolled in population health courses.

Adverse events occur in healthcare with worrying and surprising frequency and, of these, a substantial portion are preventable. This highly-readable book, translated and update from the original Dutch edition, presents 15 model case studies which have been carefully designed to explore common themes in medical errors and offer learnings from those events that will guide practice to prevent similar tragedies unfolding in future. Using 15 years of experience working in patient safety, the author makes concrete recommendations around assessment, attitude and performance, and provides a concise and accessible methodology for working safely.

Patients are increasingly encouraged to take an active role in managing their health and health care. New technologies, cultural shifts, trends in healthcare delivery, and policies have brought to the forefront the "work" patients, families, and other non-professionals perform in pursuit of health. Volume I provides a theoretical and methodological foundation for the emerging discipline of Patient Ergonomics - the science of patient work. The Patient Factor: Theories and Methods for Patient Ergonomics, Volume I defines Patient Ergonomics, explains its importance, and situates it in a broader historical and societal context. It reviews applicable theories and methods from human factors/ergonomics and related disciplines, across domains including consumer technology, patient-professional communication, self-care, and patient safety. The Patient Factor is ideal for academics working in health care and patient-centered research, their students, human factors practitioners working in healthcare organizations or at technology companies, frontline healthcare professionals, and leaders of healthcare delivery organizations.

Patients are increasingly encouraged to take an active role in managing their health and health care. New technologies, cultural shifts, trends in healthcare delivery, and policies have brought to the forefront the "work" patients, families, and other non-professionals perform in the pursuit of health. This volume closely examines notable application areas for the emerging discipline of Patient Ergonomics - the science of patient work. The Patient Factor: Applications of Patient Ergonomics, Volume II reviews the definition of Patient Ergonomics and discusses the application of Patient Ergonomics across contexts. It analyzes patient work performed in emergency departments, transitions of care, home and community settings, retail pharmacies, and online communities. It also examines applications to groups including veterans, pediatric patients, older adults, the underserved, and people engaged in health promotion. The Patient Factor is ideal for academics working in health care and patient-centered research, their students, human factors practitioners working in healthcare organizations or at technology companies, frontline healthcare professionals, and leaders of healthcare delivery organizations.

Includes numerous case studies and examples throughout. * Questions are provided at the end of each chapter. * Includes valuable templates and tools. * The content is written with the project manager in mind, providing the right level of detail to allow them to know what questions to ask for their specific project. * Updated based on current technologies, concepts and trends, along with additional templates and tools.

Arts in community health is a distinct area of activity that is characterised by the use of participatory arts to promote health. Based on the latest international research, this book considers how and why arts in community health has come about, the characteristics of its practice and the challenges it poses for evaluation. The rapid growth of this field of work in the UK from the mid-1990s has begun to impact on policy in the arts funding system, on multi-sector partnerships for health service delivery, and in local authority cultural strategies, yet the reasons for its emergence and the nature and diversity of the practice itself have gone largely unaccounted for. It encompasses work in primary care, community health and public health. Arts in community health has not evolved simply as a result of the successful advocacy of an arts sector keen to demonstrate its relevance to health, but rather through the wider recognition of a phenomenological connection between engagement in cultural activity and well-being. The pioneering viewpoints in this book promote an holistic approach to arts and public health, focusing on the development of the person and not just the sick or dysfunctional part of that person. Alongside the therapeutic benefits to patients, the book also considers environmental improvements to support staff, and using the arts to produce more creative kinds of health information. This fully referenced guide compares and contrasts the arts in different cultures and healthcare systems, how well it works, why it works, and the factors that determine its success. The case studies examined prove shared creativity aids public health and simultaneously identifies and addresses the local and specific health needs in a community. 'In the last decade health has become a recurrent topic in discussion of the role of the arts in society, fuelled by a growing body of research into connections between culture and well-being. This pioneering practice of arts in community health - began in the UK in the late 1980s through sporadic pilot projects placing local arts development in health promotion and primary care contexts. It has since grown and expanded to embrace community health on a broad front hooking up with multi-agency initiatives to address the social determinants of health through partnership working.' Mike White, in the Introduction

This book, based on extensive original research, traces the development of China's public health system, showing how advances in public health have been an integral part of China's rise. It outlines the phenomenal improvements in public health, for example the increase in life expectancy from 38 in 1949 to 73 in 2010; relates developments in public health to prevailing political ideologies; and discusses how the drivers of health improvements were, unlike in the West, modern medical professionals and intellectuals who understood that, whatever the prevailing ideology, China needs to be a strong country. The book explores how public health concepts, policies, programmes, institutions and practices changed and developed through social and political upheavals, war, and famine, and argues that this perspective of China's development is refreshingly different from China's development viewed purely in political terms.

Health services are among the most expensive and complex areas of social policy. Using qualitative comparative analysis to explore 11 developed countries' health services, this volume considers the links between a range of different outcome measures and levels of funding, social determinants and different types of health expenditures. It also reflects on how those systems responded to the first wave of COVID-19. This ambitious text identifies which underpinning factors are associated with the strongest outcomes, providing a rigorous account of health systems and health policies in the context of their wider economies and societies.

This book examines policies on unpaid care throughout the UK since the 1990 NHS and Community Care Act. It questions why, after decades of policies and strategies, unpaid care remains in a marginal position in the social care system and in society more broadly, as demonstrated during the COVID-19 pandemic. It provides critical analysis of key policies and professional practice over three decades and highlights the continuing challenges faced by people in caring relationships, as well as reflecting on developments in the position of unpaid carers in the system of social care. By questioning why this crucially important sphere of human life remains under-resourced, it sheds light on the ways in which care is understood and how policy makers and service providers perceive the need for support.