Anyone who has spent time in a hospital as a patient or family member of a patient hopes that those who attend to us or our loved ones are at their professional best and that they care for us in ways that console us and preserve our dignity. This book takes an intimate look at how health care practitioners struggle to live up to their professional and caring ideals through (or during?) twelve-hour shifts on the hospital floor.

From 3,200 hours of participant-observation and 500 hours of follow-up interviews with twenty-one doctors, thirty registered nurses, twenty-one respiratory therapists, twenty medical social workers, and eighteen occupational, physical, and speech therapists, the authors create a complex picture of the workplace conflicts that different types of health care practitioners face. Though all these groups espouse caring ideals, professional interests and a curative orientation dominate in patient care and interoccupational relations. Because emotive caring is not supported by the organization of health care in the hospital, it becomes an individual virtue that overworked staff find hard to perform, and it takes on an ideological form that obscures the status hierarchy among practitioners. Conflicts between practitioners rest upon the ranking of each group's knowledge base. They manifest in efforts to work as a team or set limits on practitioner responsibilities and in differing views on unionization.

The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act signed by President Obama in March 2010 is a landmark in U.S. social legislation, and the Supreme Court's recent decision upholding the Act has ensured that it will remain the law of the land. The new law extends health insurance to nearly all Americans, fulfilling a century-long quest and bringing the United States to parity with other industrial nations. Affordable Care aims to control rapidly rising health care costs and promises to make the United States more equal, reversing four decades of rising disparities between the very rich and everyone else. Millions of people of modest means will gain new benefits and protections from insurance company abuses - and the tab will be paid by privileged corporations and the very rich. How did such a bold reform effort pass in a polity wracked by partisan divisions and intense lobbying by special interests? What does Affordable Care mean-and what comes next? In this updated edition of Health Care Reform and American Politics: What Everyone Needs to Know (R), Lawrence R. Jacobs and Theda Skocpol-two of the nation's leading experts on politics and health care policy-provide a concise and accessible overview. They explain the political battles of 2009 and 2010, highlighting White House strategies, the deals Democrats cut with interest groups, and the impact of agitation by Tea Partiers and progressives. Jacobs and Skocpol spell out what the new law can do for everyday Americans, what it will cost, and who will pay. In a new section, they also analyze the impact the Supreme Court ruling that upheld the law. Above all, they explain what comes next, as critical yet often behind-the-scenes battles rage over implementing reform nationally and in the fifty states. Affordable Care still faces challenges at the state level despite the Court ruling. But, like Social Security and Medicare, it could also gain strength and popularity as the majority of Americans learn what it can do for them.

Managing Medical Devices within a Regulatory Framework helps administrators, designers, manufacturers, clinical engineers, and biomedical support staff to navigate worldwide regulation, carefully consider the parameters for medical equipment patient safety, anticipate problems with equipment, and efficiently manage medical device acquisition budgets throughout the total product life cycle. This contributed book contains perspectives from industry professionals and academics providing a comprehensive look at health technology management (HTM) best practices for medical records management, interoperability between and among devices outside of healthcare, and the dynamics of implementation of new devices. Various chapters advise on how to achieve patient confidentiality compliance for medical devices and their software, discuss legal issues surrounding device use in the hospital environment of care, the impact of device failures on patient safety, methods to advance skillsets for HTM professionals, and resources to assess digital technology. The authors bring forth relevant challenges and demonstrate how management can foster increased clinical and non-clinical collaboration to enhance patient outcomes and the bottom line by translating the regulatory impact on operational requirements.

Through history, interviews, anecdotes, and popular culture, this book examines pregnancy from all angles, covering changing expectations for pregnancy; new definitions of when fatherhood begins; the implications of new, earlier connections to the fetus; and the political, economic, and social consequences to the public. In the 21st century, pregnancy is more than a biological event-it's a cultural phenomenon. A Womb with a View: America's Growing Public Interest in Pregnancy addresses how media influence and changes in society have exposed and commoditized pregnancy like never before, while technology has enabled us to share, record, and preserve all aspects of the pregnancy experience. Each chapter of the book focuses on an aspect of the pregnancy experience, including efforts to peer in and bond with the fetus, the various ways of obtaining advice, the evolving role of expectant fathers, how pregnancy is depicted and treated in popular culture, and branding and marketing to pregnant couples. Interviews with those marketing products and services to pregnant women reveal how pregnancy is now "big business," while real-life stories from pregnant women and images from television and film serve to illustrate our culture's fascination with pregnancy.

The essays commissioned for this book analyze the impact of city living on health, focusing primarily on conditions in the United States. With 16 chapters by 24 internationally recognized experts, the book introduces an ecological approach to the study of the health of urban populations.

This book assesses the primary determinants of well-being in cities, including the social and physical environments, diet, and health care and social services. The book includes chapters on the history of public health in cities, the impact of urban sprawl and urban renewal on health, and the challenges facing cities in the developing world. It also examines conditions such as infectious diseases, violence and disasters, and mental illness.

Patients with unmet needs will continue to increase as no viable nor adequate treatment exists. Meanwhile, healthcare systems are struggling to cope with the rise of patients with chronic diseases, the ageing population and the increasing cost of drugs. What if there is a faster and less expensive way to provide better care for patients using the right digital solutions and transforming the growing volumes of health data into insights? The increase of digital health has grown exponentially in the last few years. Why is there a slow uptake of these new digital solutions in the healthcare and pharmaceutical industries? One of the key reasons is that patients are often left out of the innovation process. Their data are used without their knowledge, solutions designed for them are developed without their input and healthcare professionals refuse their expertise. This book explores what it means to empower patients in a digital world and how this empowerment will bridge the gap between science, technology and patients. All these components need to co-exist to bring value not only to the patients themselves but to improve the healthcare ecosystem. Patients have taken matters into their own hands. Some are equipped with the latest wearables and applications, engaged in improving their health using data, empowered to make informed decisions and ultimately are experts in their disease(s). They are the e-patients. The other side of the spectrum are patients with minimal digital literacy but equally willing to donate their data for the purpose of research. Finding the right balance when using digital health solutions becomes as critical as the need to develop a disease-specific solution. For the first time, the authors look at healthcare and technologies through the lens of patients and physicians via surveys and interviews in order to understand their perspective on digital health, analyse the benefits for them, explore how they can actively engage in the innovation process, and identify the threats and opportunities the large volumes of data create by digitizing healthcare. Are patients truly ready to know everything about their health? What is the value of their data? How can other stakeholders join the patient empowerment movement? This unique perspective will help us re-design the future of healthcare - an industry in desperate need for a change.

The number of global polio cases has fallen dramatically and eradication is within sight, but despite extraordinary efforts, polio retains its grip in a few areas. Anthropologist Svea Closser follows the trajectory of the polio eradication effort in Pakistan, one of the last four countries in the world with endemic polio. Journeying from vaccination campaigns in rural Pakistan to the center of global health decision making at the World Health Organization in Geneva, the author explores the historical and cultural underpinnings of eradication as a public health strategy, and reveals the culture of optimism that characterizes--and sometimes cripples--global health institutions.
With a keen ethnographic eye, Closser describes the complex power negotiations that underlie the eradication effort at every level, tracking techniques of resistance employed by district health workers and state governments alike. This book offers an analysis of local politics, social relations, and global political economy in the implementation of a worldwide public health effort, with broad implications for understanding what is possible in global health, now and for the future.
This book is the recipient of the annual Norman L. and Roselea J. Goldberg Prize for the best project in the area of medicine.

This book provides a detailed update on the applications of Serious Games in Healthcare and Education sector. In short, it provides an all rounded research and industry updates about the current and future advances in this area. These are the two sectors that are developing rapidly with direct applications of serious games. With advances in technologies and a new perspective on patient engagement and public expectations, the healthcare sector is increasingly turning to serious games to solve problems. Subconscious Learning via Games and Social Media will share expert opinions on the development and application of game technologies for health-related serious games. Our commercial and non-commercial expert comes from different aspects of the healthcare system from clinicians to therapist. The scope ranges from population health to specific medical domain applications. In the education sector, digital games have a great potential to improve learning of both adults and children. It is important to understand how to design games that could create long term behavioral change rather than short term alterations. In these chapters, we discuss how the serious games should be designed and deployed for both adults and children.

This book reviews the global preparedness to pandemic challenges to human health and development by compiling the brilliant ideas of experts and entrepreneurs from the fields of public health, health economics, environmental engineering, pharmaceutical interventions, and other related fields. This book proposes a collective effort to take pandemic prevention, preparedness, and response seriously and prioritize it accordingly to avoid the potential catastrophe in this inter-connected world by summarizing the lessons learned from the COVID-19. In the context of today's climate change and its association with human health, the book presents the need for aligning climate and health goals and puts up with the multi-sectors and low-carbon economic strategies where health is prioritized in development. Furthermore, when more and more novel medical and pharmaceutical items worldwide are launched, the health system could be improved. With the help of digital health, artificial intelligence (AI), and other innovative forms of healthcare products, the efficiency and effectiveness of healthcare services provision could be promoted, leading to a more promising future for human health. This book vividly presents how such new technologies are applied to build an intelligent and robust health system and how innovations can be used to promote human health.

This book takes as a starting point that welfare states in developed societies do not provide systems of social insurance against the risk of an early death. In contrast to the way in which economically developed countries provide ways of insuring citizens against other possibilities, such as unemployment and disease, no such social insurance mechanism exists for early death. It aims to demonstrate that, despite the impossibility to compensate the victims of a short life once they are identified, and despite the impossibility to identify the persons who will be short-lived (when they are still alive), it is nonetheless possible to construct a social insurance against the risk of a short life by means of age-based statistical discrimination favouring all young persons. Combining philosophical literature with economic analysis, the book re-examines the ethical foundations of social insurance, and proposes a major reform of the welfare state: the construction of a social insurance against a short life. It shows how such an insurance system could be constructed by partially 'reversing' existing pension systems, by offering a period of retirement to all young adults before they start their career. Such a 'reversed' pension system would allocate more free time and opportunities to younger members of society before they enter the labour market, and, hence, this system would also improve the lives of the - unidentified - young persons who will turn out to die prematurely. The book discusses the social desirability of this new system, as well as its financial feasibility and societal consequences, examining how pension allowances paid to young adults may be financed by the work of senior workers. As such, this book demonstrates how the universal uncertainty about the duration of life can be reconciled with the idea of social justice. With an accessible and interdisciplinary approach, this book will be of interest to academics working in a range of fields, including economics, public finance, social insurance, the economics of ageing and the welfare state, economic ethics and political philosophy.

This comprehensive volume explores the evolving fields of consumer informatics and telemedicine as envisioned by the Institute of Medicine in its landmark reports on the electronic medical record, patient safety, and quality care. Each chapter describes the role of computers, technology, and telecommunications as enablers within a specific application focused on the needs of consumers. The applications covered are ones which empower consumers as they seek information, analyze their health care needs, and make decisions about their own health care. Such applications empower professionals in their efforts to serve patients, while increasing the knowledge of the consumer. Richly illustrated with detailed examples, this volume speaks to a wide range of audiences as it addresses issues raised by consumer informatics, the use of technology, research and development effects, and telemedicine. Chapter highlights include: Patient-Centered Communication; Using the Internet Toward Reliable Consumer Health Information; Disease Management and Home Telehealth; and Biothreats and Disaster Management. The book's audience includes all healthcare professionals, healthcare administrators, IT professionals, health informaticians, and students.

Learn facility-based coding by actually working with codes. ICD-10-CM/PCS Coding: Theory and Practice provides an in-depth understanding of inpatient diagnosis and procedure coding to those who are just learning to code, as well as to experienced professionals who need to solidify and expand their knowledge. Featuring basic coding principles, clear examples, and challenging exercises, this text helps explain why coding is necessary for reimbursement, the basics of the health record, and rules, guidelines, and functions of ICD-10-CM/PCS coding. 30-day access to TruCode (R) Encoder Essentials gives students experience with using an encoder software, plus access to additional encoder practice exercises on the Evolve website. ICD-10-CM and ICD-10-PCS Official Guidelines for Coding and Reporting provide fast, easy access to instructions on proper application of codes. Coverage of both common and complex procedures prepares students for inpatient procedural coding using ICD-10-PCS. Numerous and varied examples and exercises within each chapter break the material into manageable segments and help students gauge learning while reinforcing important concepts. Illustrations and examples of key diseases help in understanding how commonly encountered conditions relate to ICD-10-CM coding. Strong coverage of medical records provides a context for coding and familiarizes students with documents they will encounter on the job. Illustrated, full-color design emphasizes important content such as anatomy and physiology and visually reinforces key concepts. Evolve website offers students online access to additional practice exercises, coding guidelines, answer keys, coding updates, and more. NEW! Updated ICD-10 codes and coding guidelines revisions ensure students have the most up-to-date information available.

This volume delineates the ways in which key areas of healthcare, well-being, patient safety and organisational change overlap with and contribute to unhealthy workplaces for healthcare professionals. There is a growing realisation within healthcare that healthcare worker well-being, patient outcomes and organisational change are symbiotically linked. Burnout and stress in healthcare workers and toxic organisational cultures can lead to a cycle of patient neglect, medical errors, sub-optimal care and further stress. This topical volume therefore outlines the ways in which worker well-being, patient outcomes and organisational change can be aligned to contribute to a healthy workplace and therefore better medical care. The volume includes an array of authors from different disciplines including primary care, clinical medicine, psychology, sociology, management, clinical governance, health policy and health services research. It succeeds in integrating different voices and reaches meaningful conclusions to address the challenges facing the healthcare workforce.

The COVID-19 pandemic has reminded us of how important the life science industry is, and compels us to find efficient management methods specific to the industry. Pharmaceuticals, drug and vaccine development labs, R&D labs, medical instrumentation, and tech companies, hygiene supply companies, medical distribution chains, all form an integral part of this industry. At the interface of scientific research, technology, innovation and management and embedded in regulatory and legal frameworks, life science management is still an under-researched field of practice and science. This edited volume addresses this research gap and offers a wide range of practical and theoretical contributions that provide insights into one of the most exciting industries. The book is primarily directed at practitioners and decision makers in the life science industry. Students and professionals of life science management at all levels as well as policy makers will find valuable insights and inspiration for their daily work and career development.

This volume presents a comprehensive overview of the current rural health environment by sorting topics into coverage of the demand for rural health, the supply of resources (facilities and personnel), the broad application of technology, and the roles of government policies and rural sociology. A major purpose is to guide those involved in decision making and planning to insure continued provision of health care for rural residents. A unique feature is the integration of innovative approaches throughout the work; there is a recognition that several rural institutions are undergoing transition and that fresh approaches are critical.

This work will be of interest to scholars, policy-makers, and practitioners in rural health care, health care facilities, and health care management.

This book offers an analysis of the dynamics of the global medical device (medtech) industry from the 1960s until the present, using the approaches of business history and industry studies. While most of the publications in the corresponding field have focused on particular countries/regions or actors, this research is unique in its scope. First, it explores the formation and development of medtech business both globally and in the major countries engaged in this industry (the United States, Japan, Germany, Switzerland, France, and China). Second, it tackles a broad range of actors and organizations, from individual entrepreneurs, medical doctors, and engineers to small family firms, start-ups, and large multinationals, as well as universities and research centers. Hence, for the first time, this book both provides a general understanding of the formation and transformation of the medtech industry throughout the world and sheds light on the main features of a fast-growing business in the twenty-first century. This book will be of value to historians, industry professionals, and analysts.

This text deals with issues of growing importance in both the US health care system and health care systems across the world. Such systems need to respond to changes in technology within health care, shifting technologies not specific to health care, and changes in the way patients and physicians view health and the use of health services in society. Chapters focus on how technologies and programs apply to either general groups within the health care system or more specialized groups, such as people with a certain health care problem. Papers deal with a variety of topics, from a focus on consumers and the varying roles the play in the emerging and changing US health care system, to the examination of specific principles such as social network approaches.

Death is a natural part of life. But it has become a painful, protracted, humiliating process that is often inappropriate for the healthcare patient, puts an undue financial and emotional burden on the family, and provides a model of improper care for physicians in training. And it's expensive--about 22 percent of all medical expenditures are for people in the last year of their lives. Further, while studies show that 90 percent of all people would prefer to die at home surrounded by family and friends, the reality is that more than 70 percent die in institutions. As Dr. Ken Fisher argues so passionately in this book, it's time for a change. End-of-life care in the U.S. has evolved over the years into a nightmare for patients and family members, and it has created a near-crushing financial burden on the medical system that is not just excessive but unsustainable. It has driven the cost of healthcare out of reach for many people, and it is a large factor in preventing the creation of universal coverage. In Defiance of Death reviews the current state of end-of-life care and highlights its many problems from a variety of economic, political, and social perspectives. Fisher and Rockwell illuminate the ethical dilemmas we all face as technology allows us to prolong life--but at a huge human and financial cost. This book documents these problems and provides a historical perspective of how our medical system evolved. It argues that America's "defiance of death" is far too costly and recommend that all stakeholders--including the public, medical community, Congress, and business leaders--join together to create a system that improves end-of-life care for everyone involved. This book, withworkable solutions to improve our medical system, helps point the way.

Most leadership development activity in health and social care has been intra-organisational or confined to a particular sector. However, there is increasing recognition of the need to move beyond simple collaboration and partnership and work towards different models of care which involve addressing the whole health and social care system. This is particularly important when addressing complex and 'wicked' problems in a time of resource scarcity. This book provides a much-needed guide for individuals, professionals, and organisations making the shift towards working in radically different ways in this current climate. It provides a rationale for systems leadership, describing the basic underlying principles behind it and their origins, and explores the various aspects of it, with particular emphasis on the development of systems leaders in health and social care. It also captures good practice, which is illustrated by a number of case studies, and suggests further reading on the topic. Combining theory with practice, this book will be essential reading for those studying on courses in public service, public policy, health and social care, as well as policymakers and professionals interested in honing best practice.

Responding to demographic changes among physicians and six years of new experiences since the first edition, Dr. Myers has revamped his well received work. He includes new information on older physicians, gay and lesbian physicians, medical student abuse, economic strain on interns, depression, malpractice, ethical violations, and other stressors which may cause marital difficulties. Therapists seeking to council symptomatic physicians, as well physicians themselves, will find this a humane, readable, and useful book.

This book provides an analysis of the role of fog computing, cloud computing, and Internet of Things in providing uninterrupted context-aware services as they relate to Healthcare 4.0. The book considers a three-layer patient-driven healthcare architecture for real-time data collection, processing, and transmission. It gives insight to the readers for the applicability of fog devices and gateways in Healthcare 4.0 environments for current and future applications. It also considers aspects required to manage the complexity of fog computing for Healthcare 4.0 and also develops a comprehensive taxonomy.

[ The main goal of this cluster is the optimisation of the medical arts and science. In a graphical representation of human life, the lifespan or time can be shown on a horizontal axis, and the incidences of disease or health can be shown on a vertical axis. Throughout, patient exists in his personal environment, in his individual pri vate sphere. th In the late 20 century, medical arts and sciences have achieved enormous pro gress resulting in highly effective diagnosis and therapy. Today in Europe, a main concern of our society centres around non-communi cable diseases, because communicable diseases have been dramatically reduced by past intensive socio-hygienic programmes. Nevertheless, medicine in Europe must be always alert to fight communicable diseases such as TB, AIDS, SARS etc. Medicine has been very successful in the past in fighting communicable and non-communicable diseases. This has resulted in an increase of our lifespan, and an ageing population. Table 1 shows life expectancy in Europe in 2001. This varies in EU member states from 78.6 up to 82.2 years in females, from 73.7 to 74.6 years in males. In the candidate countries, life expectancy varies in females from 75.2 to 78.1 years and from 66.1 to 71.1 years in males. Table 2 shows the remaining life span at age 65, which is much higher in the EU member states than in the candidate countries. This increasing life expectancy dramatically alters the structure of our society.

Two renowned healthcare transformation experts reveal how you can implement the principles and behaviors that leaders at all levels must embrace in order to create lasting change. Healthcare is on the brink of a quality revolution-one that requires deeply personal as well as organizational changes. In Becoming the Change, two pioneers in the healthcare transformation movement show you how to cultivate principle-driven behaviors that can turn the tantalizing possibilities on the healthcare horizon into reality. Transformational improvement has often been aimed at frontline healthcare workers rather than leaders at all levels, resulting in "islands of excellence" that are unsustainable. Toussaint and Barnas demonstrate how change needs to start at the top-whether you're an executive, a governing board member, a manager, or a physician. Drawing on a wealth of case studies, they explore how change actually happens, and reveal how healthcare systems led by people who are compassionate, principled, and engaged can undergo profound and lasting transformation.

Data is more valuable than ever in the twenty-first century, and tremendous amounts of data are being generated every second. With a fast-growing information industry, engineers are required to develop new tools and techniques that increase human capabilities of mining useful knowledge from the vast amounts of data. Optimized Genetic Programming Applications: Emerging Research and Opportunities is an essential reference source that explores the concept of genetic programming and its role in managing engineering problems. It also examines genetic programming as a supervised machine learning technique, focusing on implementation and application. As a resource that details both the theoretical aspects and implementation of genetic programming, this book is a useful source for academicians, biological engineers, computer programmers, scientists, researchers, and upper-level students seeking the latest research on genetic programming.