Who determines whether persons are disabled and eligible to receive the billions of dollars that are awarded in benefits under federal disability programs today in the United States? What kinds of standards are applied in making awards to millions of applicants? And how are disability determinations made and claims adjudicated? Frank S. Bloch provides a careful study of disability determinations in five major federal programs. His findings, models, and calls for reform, including the greater use of medical personnel, should interest those who want to know more about the medical-legal issues relevant to disability determination, the many factors that impact on disability decisionmaking, and the administrative process for making disability decisions. This survey covers the disability determination process in U.S. social security, railroad retirement, civil service, veteran, and black lung disability programs at the federal level. Dr. Bloch defines various standards, key issues, the current use of medical personnel and models for their fuller use and for reforming the disability determination process.

Globalization affects human health in wide-ranging and multifaceted ways, ranging from the behaviors of individuals to broad social, political, and economic contexts within which health and disease occur. This book provides an introduction to these complex linkages through an exploration of the spatial, temporal and cognitive dimensions of global change. Challenging the neglect of health issues within the globalization literature, the book draws on diverse empirical evidence to argue that urgent attention to these impacts is needed.

"Healing by Heart" is a book of stories--stories of people's search for culturally responsive health care from U.S. providers. It offers resources to providers and institutions committed to delivering culturally responsive health care, paying special attention to building successful relationships with traditional Hmong patients and families. It makes available extensive information about the health-related beliefs, practices, and values of the Hmong people, including photographs of traditional healing methods.

Ranging in age from young infants to older adults, the patients in the stories present a wide range of health problems. The clinicians are from family practice, internal medicine, pediatrics, emergency medicine, surgery, obstetrics-gynecology, psychiatry/psychology, and hospice.

Each of the fourteen case stories is accompanied by discussion questions as well as two or three commentaries. The commentaries--written by patients, family members, shaman, Western clinicians (including Hmong physicians, nurses, and social workers), medical anthropologists, health care ethicists, social workers, psychologists, and clergy--are rich in personal reflections on cross-cultural health care experiences. Readers are rewarded with a combination of perspectives, including those of Hmong authors who have not previously published in English and scholars with years of professional experience working with the Hmong in Laos, Thailand, and the United States.

The editors offer a model for delivering culturally responsive health care with special attention to matters of cross-cultural health care ethics. The model identifies questions health care providers can focus on as they seek to understand the health-related moral commitments and practices prevalent in the cultural groups they serve, ethical questions that arise frequently and with great poignancy in cross-cultural health care relationships, and points to consider when a patient's treatment wish challenges the provider's professional integrity.

By sharing stories of suffering, confusion, and success, "Healing by Heart" couples an accessible method of learning about others with concrete recommendations about how to enhance cross-cultural health care relationships.

This book investigates the powerful role of online intermediaries, which connect companies with their end customers, to facilitate joint product innovation. Especially in the healthcare context, such intermediaries deploy interactive online platforms to foster co-creation between engaged healthcare consumers and innovation-seeking healthcare companies. In three empirical studies, this book outlines the key characteristics of online intermediaries in healthcare, their distinct strategies, and the remaining challenges in the field. Readers will also be introduced to the stages companies go through in adopting such co-created solutions. As such, the work appeals for both its academic scope and practical reach.

Volume 19 in the "Research in Political Sociology" series is devoted to health problems, challenges and accomplishments in democratic societies. It includes papers addressing health systems, health policies, obstacles to societal healthy behaviors, and/or health conditions that are experienced in democratic societies in the world. The democratic society is understood in a broadly defined term. It includes developed Western democracies, as well as less developed or underdeveloped countries that have democratic system. According to such definition, the category "democracies" includes democratic countries that have well established democratic system and respect broad network of people rights, as well as democracies that are formally consider democratic states but de facto respect only a few rights or their governments are guided by limited democratic principles. Therefore, the collection of the 19th volume of "Research in Political Sociology" includes papers addressing these issues in a broad spectrum of countries from India, Sri Lanka and Tanzania, to Sweden, Canada and the United States.

Based on original research and analysis by a group of health policy experts and economists from across the world, this book analyzes the causes and consequences of the expanding global and local commercialization of health care. It argues for the necessity and possibility of effective policy responses to develop good quality, universally inclusive health systems worldwide. The book aims to contribute to a shift in the international 'common sense' in health policy towards a more humane, inclusive, egalitarian, and ethical framework for policy formulation.

The story of Medicaid comes alive for readers in this strong narrative, including detailed accounts of important policy changes and extensive use of interviews. A central theme of the book is that Medicaid is a "weak entitlement," one less established or effectively defended than Medicare or Social Security, but more secure than welfare or food stamps. In their analysis, the authors argue that the future of Medicaid is sound. It has the flexibility to be adapted by states as well as to allow for policy innovation. At the same time, the program lacks an effective mechanism for overall reform. They note Medicaid has become a source of perennial political controversy as it has grown to become the largest health insurance system in the country. The book's dual emphasis on politics and policy is important in making the arcane Medicaid program accessible to readersand in distinguishing policy grounded in analysis from partisan ideology. This second edition features a new preface, three new chapters accounting for the changes to the Affordable Care Act, and an updated glossary.

Innovations in Health Care is the fourth title in an ongoing series from the biennial conference Organizational Behaviour in Health Care. It compiles case examples of innovations within complex healthcare settings that are working, providing some credible and valuable examples of what can be and has been accomplished through organizational change. It also explores a range of cases where innovations were hindered or blocked from completing or sustaining across time, critically examining where current theories and practices are falling short and why there are problems that remain unsolved.

This report reviews the progress of the implementation of the health financing reform in Ukraine, in particular the funding, purchasing, and governance of the Program of Medical Guarantees (PMG).

There has been a dramatic increase in the utilization of wireless technologies in healthcare systems as a consequence of the wireless ubiquitous and pervasive communications revolution. Emerging information and wireless communication technologies in health and healthcare have led to the creation of e-health systems, also known as e-healthcare, which have been drawing increasing attention in the public and have gained strong support from government agencies and various organizations. E-Healthcare Systems and Wireless Communications: Current and Future Challenges explores the developments and challenges associated with the successful deployment of e-healthcare systems. The book combines research efforts in different disciplines including pervasive wireless communications, wearable computing, context-awareness, sensor data fusion, artificial intelligence, neural networks, expert systems, databases, and security. This work serves as a comprehensive reference for graduate students in bioengineering and also provides solutions for medical researchers who are faced with the challenge of designing and implementing a cost-effective pervasive and ubiquitous wireless communication system.

"Governing Health and Consumption" critically explores the urban governance of healthy lifestyles and the contemporary problematizations of the obesity, sedentarism and alcohol "epidemics." Using both US and UK case studies to shed light on the complex socio-spatial dynamics of responsibilities for health, Clare Herrick argues for an engagement with the construct of "sensible" behavior at a time of its rising political salience. This book will appeal to sociologists, geographers, anthropologists, and anyone concerned with the governance of health and lifestyle.

The nations of the EU have long led the world in universal health coverage. Recent economic developments have created problems ranging from inequities of care to growing numbers of uninsured - a progression analyzed by Win de Gooijer in Trends in EU Health Care Systems. His ideas may be startling, and the book is bound to be controversial. This is critical reading for health care managers and policymakers, politicians and insurors - anyone looking to Europe to understand this far-reaching evolution.

Health and mental health organizations are undergoing major changes in policies, procedures, structures, and emphasis. Many of these changes appear related to what may be termed the managed care revolution. This upheaval in delivery systems related to health and mental health care has been associated with great changes and rapid turnover in leaders and in leadership positions. It appears that many leaders are not able to lead their organizations into this or other new territories. The purpose of this book is to describe stages that organizations go through as they move rapidly to adapt to new and sometimes unwanted changes. The emphasis is on the aspects of leaders and of leadership that appear tied to successful or unsuccessful outcomes for organizations in the midst of these rapid changes. Particular challenges and expectations that are likely to be present in organizations and in individuals facing change are described. Methods are presented that might be employed by leaders to confront various difficulties in order to direct successful outcomes for themselves, as leaders, and for their organizations. Throughout the book, the essential and sometimes differing goals of leaders as individuals and of leadership as a professional process are highlighted. This book will be of interest to leaders and managers at all levels in various health and mental health care organizations, as well as graduate students in health care management, health care services, health care administration, and business administration. It will also be of interest to mental health professionals and graduate students in industrial and organizational psychology.

Systematically updated throughout, the sixth edition of this leading text takes the story of health policy to the end of the Blair era and into the early years of the Brown premiership. It offers a clear and thorough introduction to the history of the NHS, its funding and priorities, and to the process of policy making.

The theme of this volume is Health Care Services, Racial and Ethnic Minorities and Underserved Populations: Patient and Provider Perspectives. The volume is divided into five sections. The first section discusses the overall issue of health care disparities and underserved populations and also provides introductory material about the rest of the volume. The next section focuses on issues that relate to gender. The third section provides papers on some other specific examples of underserved populations: those with mental health concerns, those with concerns related to emotional well being, the elderly population and sex workers. The fourth section includes papers that discuss treatment disparities and providers of care. The final section includes papers that relate to policy concerns.

The topic of health care services and underserved populations is one of growing importance within the US health care system and one of importance in health care systems across the world. Concern about equity in health care is not new. There is a long tradition in medical sociology of studies of inequities in health status and use of health care services. Over the past ten to twenty years, there have been many studies that have documented that race and socioeconomic status (SES) influence the use of health care services. Within the US in the past decade, this area of concern is often described as studies of health disparities and this volume is a contribution to that research. This volume examines the issue more broadly, by including some issues in countries besides the US and examining the role of providers in treatment disparities and important policy concerns.

From the medical use of marijuana to organ donations to animal testing, the medical profession is rife with controversial issues. Students and teachers can now use this reference resource to explore all sides of these issues. Narrative chapters, each one devoted to a specific topic, encourage students to consider all the facts surrounding the various controversies. Case studies and first-person accounts bring the issues to life and concluding questions for each chapter challenge students to use their critical thinking skills to draw their own conclusions.This collection provides historical as well as contemporary contexts for an examination of government structures in the United States and the states of the former U.S.S.R. Throughout, the contributors look at federalism at both local and national levels, and they try to assess how and why the two systems developed as they did.

Each of the fifteen chapters analyzes the pro and con arguments and current status of a specific controversy, illuminating the philosophical dilemmas faced by medical professionals as well as their patients and the general public as a whole. The Goldsteins present opposing arguments on the sources and nature of each controversy, providing readers with an understanding of the causes and effects of medical controversies. This basic introduction to these many different issues, including, among others, the arguments surrounding a need for national health insurance, the arguments surrounding the ethics of cloning, the arguments surrounding the needs and dangers of childhood vaccinations, and the arguments surrounding end-of-life issues will provide a starting ground for students interested in researching these topics further, while also encouraging them to begin dialogues with their peers to help them develop their ability to analyze complicated issues.

By following the daily lives of rural women in the Sitapur district of Uttar Pradesh, an agricultural region with high rates of infant mortality, where maternal health services are poor while family planning efforts are intensive, from a range of castes and communities, the author considers the women's own experiences of birth and infant death, their ways of making-do, and the hierarchies they create and contend with. This book develops an approach to access to care that focuses on emotion, domestic spaces, illicit and extra-institutional biomedicine, and household and neighborly relations. It shows that, as part of the concatenation of affect and access, globalized moralities about reproduction are dependent on ambiguous ideas about caste. Through the unfolding of birth and death, a new vision of untouchability emerges that is integral to visions of progress.

A must read for current and aspiring Emergency Medical Service leaders. While this book is not intended to reveal any magic formula for effective leadership, it does highlight proven leadership principles and several key elements of organizational success.

<I>Health Impacts of Globalization</I> brings together an interdisciplinary group of researchers to analyze specific case studies that provide much needed empirical analysis of the impact of globalization on health. The range of issues covered—AIDS, tobacco control, BSE/CJD, nutrition, cholera, anti-microbial resistance, WTO, global governance—is intended to be illustrative, rather than representative, of the diverse health impacts of global change.

The UK government's reforms of the NHS and public health system require partnerships if they are to succeed. Those partnerships concerned with public health are especially important and are deemed to be a 'good thing' which add, rather than consume, value. Yet the significant emphasis on partnership working to secure effective policy and service delivery exists despite the evidence testifying to how difficult it is to make partnerships work or achieve results. Partnership working in public health presents the findings from a detailed study of public health partnerships in England. The lessons from the research are used to explore the government's changes in public health now being implemented, most of which centre on new partnerships called Health and Wellbeing Boards that have been established to work differently from their predecessors.The book assesses their likely impact and the implications for the future of public health partnerships. Drawing on systems thinking, it argues that partnerships can only succeed if they work in quite different ways. The book will therefore appeal to the public health community and students of health policy.

Based on long-term medical anthropological research in northern Ghana, the author analyses issues of health and healing, of gender, and of the control and use of money in a changing rural African setting. He describes the culture of medical pluralism, so typical for neo-colonial states, and people's choices of "traditional" (local) medicine (plants and sacrifices), Islamic medicine (charms and various written solutions) and "modern" therapy (biomedicine, in particular western pharmaceuticals). He concludes that the rural-urban divide is a fiction, that demarcations between these areas are frequently blurred, linked by a postcolonial, capitalist discourse of local markets, regional economies and national structures, which frequently emerge in local African settings but often originate in global and multinational markets.

"This monograph is devoted to an analysis of Medicare and Medicaid provisions together with a brief description of the conditions and events that led to their enactment into law. . . . Chapter 1 is devoted to the provisions of Medicare and attempts to appraise their probable effect. The conditions that gave rise to the law are reviewed in Chapter 2, and a brief chronicle of the legislation is given in Chapter 3. Chapters 4 and 5 deal with Medicaid, its provision, and its effect on state medical care plans."-- from the introduction--

This book pursues a multidisciplinary approach in order to evaluate the socio-ecological dimensions of infectious diseases in Southeast Asia. It includes 18 chapters written by respected researchers in the fields of history, sociology, ecology, epidemiology, veterinary sciences, medicine and the environmental sciences on six major topics: (1) Infectious diseases and societies, (2) Health, infectious diseases and socio-ecosystems; (3) Global changes, land use changes and vector-borne diseases; (4) Monitoring and data acquisition; (5) Managing health risks; and (6) Developing strategies. The book offers a valuable guide for students and researchers in the fields of development and environmental studies, animal and human health (veterinarians, physicians), ecology and conservation biology, especially those with a focus on Southeast Asia.