The impact of European integration on diverse national social policies is still largely unknown. While policy decision making remains at the country level, there is a strong possibility that indirectly, as a result of ideological imperatives and financial constraints, policies will change. National health policy is a case in point. This important volume explores the current and probable effect of European integration on health care protection. Will it tend to encourage all European member states to provide equitable and universal access to quality care? Or is the European integration process likely to lead to social exclusion of some? The high degree of social welfare as a health expectancy holds great significance for decisions in countries like the United States facing similiar pressures for expanded coverage. In answering these questions, Panos Minogiannis examines policies in Greece, France, Germany, and the Netherlands. Minogiannis frames his argument through an exploration of the history of the institutionalization of health care. Chapter 1 explores the nature of challenges that health care faces in an era of integration and the ways in which these challenges have emerged. Chapter 2 discusses centralization of governance in Brussels, describing the structure and relations of different European Union institutions, and their interactions with member states. The final portions of the book, through case studies of the Dutch, French, German, and Greek health reforms, explore the history of the political development of health care institutions with a particular interest in reform proposals in the last fifteen years. Chapter 7 brings together lessons from previous chapters and discusses the dynamics of health policy making in the European Union. Minogiannis concludes that health insurance will most likely remain at the member state level as far as politics are concerned, at least for the present, although policy makers will most likely have to deal with the issue of cross-border health more comprehensively than in the past. Those interested in comparative policy, and in particular health care policy, will find this volume highly informative reading. Those interested in the impact of European integration will find it provocative. Panos Minogiannis is with the Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University and is a research associate at the Eisenhower Center.

Advancing work to effectively study, understand, and serve the fastest growing U.S. ethnic minority population, this volume explicitly emphasizes the racial and ethnic diversity within this heterogeneous cultural group. The focus is on the complex historical roots of contemporary Latino/as, their diversity in skin-color and physiognomy, racial identity, ethnic identity, gender differences, immigration patterns, and acculturation. The work highlights how the complexities inherent in the diverse Latino/a experience, as specified throughout the topics covered in this volume, become critical elements of culturally responsive and racially conscious mental health treatment approaches. By addressing the complexities, within-group differences, and racially heterogeneity characteristic of U.S. Latino/as, this volume makes a significant contribution to the literature related to mental health treatments and interventions.

An important contribution in the burgeoning literature relating to the delivery of medical care, and to the broader question of responsible decision-making in those social areas where tragic choices have to be made. The effort is an excellent example of research into, and therapy for, an important social process.

Healthcare is on a critical path, evolving with the introduction of Obama Care and now COVID-19. How will healthcare and specifically healthcare security adapt over the next few years? What tools will be necessary for healthcare security professionals and all security professionals to meet the demands of the transforming security environment? Security professionals need new tools and programs to adapt security services to the "New Normal." As healthcare emerges from pandemic threats, active shooter and workplace violence will re-emerge and new threats related to civil unrest, fraud, mergers, and further financial struggles will change how healthcare security will function. Healthcare Security: Solutions for Management, Operations, and Administration provides a series of articles related to the management and operations of healthcare security which will assist healthcare security professionals in managing the "New Normal" now and into the future. It is a collection of previously published articles on healthcare security and general security covering various topics related to the management of healthcare security and provides information on general security operations. It also includes unconventional topics that are necessary in the administration of healthcare security such as auditing principles, fraud prevention, investigations, interview and interrogation techniques, and forensics.

Inappropriate health care is an escalating and expensive problem. It affects high income, middle income, and low income countries and wastes billions of dollars annually as well as harming individuals and communities. Inappropriate care refers to both the overuse and underuse of tests and treatments and, ironically, can occur concurrently within the same health system. Even though patient-centred care is still the prevailing ethos, specifying where patients should be situated geographically has not required health professionals to consider the preferences, values, and priorities of patients when making treatment decisions. Patient-perspective care demands that the decisions health professionals make are in the service of patient's goals. Health care, ultimately, is helping individuals to live the lives they would wish for themselves. In order to meet this imperative, health professionals must work towards understanding what their patients would like to achieve through their engagement with health services. This book details the extent and scope of inappropriate care and how we have arrived in this position. The necessity for patient-perspective care is outlined and provides a theoretical framework that explains why patient-perspective care is so critical. The implications of this theory are then explored and specific strategies for moving towards a patient-perspective approach are discussed. This book is entirely original and describes a novel, fresh approach to delivering health services. Many long-standing and expensive problems such as missed appointments will disappear and patients will be more satisfied with the treatments they receive. Health services generally will be more efficient and effective leading to more sustainable and affordable health care.

Over a quarter century of studies have shown that addictions, mental illnesses, and their combinations (dual diagnoses) are pervasive in the general population. Meanwhile, emerging neuroscience is revealing that the neurodevelopmental basis of major mental illness and addiction diseases are tightly interconnected and often unified pathologies of the brain. This science calls into question the profound split between the addiction and mental health fields that define our fragmented research, professional training, and treatment delivery systems-a split that leaves most patients out of reach of adequate professional expertise and evidence-based standards of care. The 2 x 4 Model, as described in this translational textbook of Addiction Psychiatry, is the essential blueprint and operational manual for the fully integrated, expertly staffed, Dual Diagnosis clinic- a clinic that is maximally capable and efficient in treating the full spectrum of addictions, mental illness, and their comorbidities, through integration of psychotherapies and medications, by one team under one roof. Replication of 2 x 4 Model Clinics into a national system would allow widespread access to excellent, transparent standards of Addiction Psychiatry as a decisive measure against mass incarceration and the exploding health care crisis of untreated addictions, all while rebuilding brain health as a core public health, social and economic imperative of modern society.

With ever-rising healthcare costs, evidence generation through Health Economics and Outcomes Research (HEOR) plays an increasingly important role in decision-making about the allocation of resources. Accordingly, it is now customary for health technology assessment and reimbursement agencies to request for HEOR evidence, in addition to data from clinical trials, to inform decisions about patient access to new treatment options. While there is a great deal of literature on HEOR, there is a need for a volume that presents a coherent and unified review of the major issues that arise in application, especially from a statistical perspective. Statistical Topics in Health Economics and Outcomes Research fulfils that need by presenting an overview of the key analytical issues and best practice. Special attention is paid to key assumptions and other salient features of statistical methods customarily used in the area, and appropriate and relatively comprehensive references are made to emerging trends. The content of the book is purposefully designed to be accessible to readers with basic quantitative backgrounds, while providing an in-depth coverage of relatively complex statistical issues. The book will make a very useful reference for researchers in the pharmaceutical industry, academia, and research institutions involved with HEOR studies. The targeted readers may include statisticians, data scientists, epidemiologists, outcomes researchers, health economists, and healthcare policy and decision-makers.

Performance management, often referred to as process management, is a strategy that can be used to achieve an optimum mix of quality, safety, patient satisfaction and solvency. The basis of performance management is the effective use of resources, as measured by quantifying processes and outcomes using key performance indicators (KPIs) - core measures that gauge the performance of an organization in particular areas. There is more to performance management than selecting a few KPIs from a list and feeding them into a graphical dashboard system. It's about behavior change, leadership, and vision. Written for administrators, clinical staff, process improvement managers and information technology personnel of healthcare organizations, this second edition provides the knowledge necessary to provide the leadership and vision for a performance measurement initiative. This practical resource provides a high-level review of the quality/safety initiatives in healthcare, describes the implementation process from an IT perspective, and offers high-level clinical, financial and cultural details. It features an extensive listing of clinical and non-clinical KPIs: a glossary including financial, medical, and operational terms; and appendices of organizations and sources of indicators and benchmarks.

Health care is increasingly under pressure. Budget crises are making collaboration and smart thinking essential, while increasing numbers of people with multiple long-term conditions make specialist models of health care increasingly inefficient - patients too often go from one specialist to another, duplicating effort and paying too little attention to the bigger picture of their health. Collaborating for Health outlines a solution: community-oriented integrated care and health promotion. Designed to prevent the problems of fragmented care, this approach focuses on building teams, networks and communities for health and care at local level, where it is easier to see the range of factors that affect people's health. With the emphasis on partnership-working between primary care, public health and others, it allows clusters of general practices to share the work of integrating efforts for care and health improvement, and for non-medical organisations to lead parallel initiatives for health and care. Introducing both horizontal and vertical integration, Thomas presents ways to develop community-oriented integrated care in a sustainable way, and how to practise the skills in small ways before you have to perform on a big stage. This guide is for anyone interested in how multidisciplinary primary care teams can orchestrate most aspects of health and care at local level, with timely specialist input.

While most healthcare facilities have an extremely high success rate at the most challenging lifesaving work and we all know of friends and relatives who have had supreme care, mistakes are still made and patients' lives have been put at risk and lost. How often have we heard politicians say after some disastrous report, "Lessons must be learned", but what does this really mean. Will responsible parties carry out a careful cause and effect analysis and methodically get to the root causes of the problem? Will sufficient steps be taken to permanently eradicate those causes and provide a permanent solution so that the problem will not reoccur? This is what is done in the aviation industry with the result that air travel is very safe. The low accident rate is achieved by studying the causes and using the methods of continuous improvement explained in this book. These methods are now becoming better known in the medical profession have been recommended in recent reports but are perhaps misunderstood at operational levels. This book is a basic level manual for those who have never been involved in any form of quality improvement project and is also suitable as a refresher for anyone wishing to familiarize themselves with the various techniques discussed. The aim of this book is to explain what continuous improvement is and why it's needed; explain how individual departments can explain how and why continuous improvement is important, and helps readers recognize quality control methods in their own workplace and understand how to contribute to existing continuous improvement activities. While many of the case studies and examples are from the NHS, the author includes similar examples from around the world.

With the NHS committed to making quality the centre of treatment, clinical audit - a proven and effective process for measuring quality and driving its improvement - has never been a more topical issue. Now thoroughly updated and rewritten, this new edition describes the process by which health professionals, managers and other NHS staff can assess the standard of care they deliver and how closely it corresponds with recommended best practice. It sets out the key principles of clinical audit practice, detailing advances in recent years such as simplified and accelerated audit, improved patient involvement, attention to ethics and methodology and the embedding of clinical audit in organisational governance as well as clinical practice. This book is essential reading for all those who undertake clinical audit or are training to do so, including health practitioners, managers and commissioners in the NHS. It will also be useful to patients who contribute to audit governance. Reviews from the first edition: This book should be available in all trusts and recommended to those of both junior and senior status who are about to invest time and energy in an audit project.' MEDICAL PROTECTION SOCIETY [W]ell-structured with summaries set out as key points throughout. The appendices give invaluable information on numerous websites for clinical guidelines, on clinical audit and clinical governance.' PHYSIOTHERAPY JOURNAL

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.

While most healthcare facilities have an extremely high success rate at the most challenging lifesaving work and we all know of friends and relatives who have had supreme care, mistakes are still made and patients' lives have been put at risk and lost. How often have we heard politicians say after some disastrous report, "Lessons must be learned", but what does this really mean. Will responsible parties carry out a careful cause and effect analysis and methodically get to the root causes of the problem? Will sufficient steps be taken to permanently eradicate those causes and provide a permanent solution so that the problem will not reoccur? This is what is done in the aviation industry with the result that air travel is very safe. The low accident rate is achieved by studying the causes and using the methods of continuous improvement explained in this book. These methods are now becoming better known in the medical profession have been recommended in recent reports but are perhaps misunderstood at operational levels. This book is a basic level manual for those who have never been involved in any form of quality improvement project and is also suitable as a refresher for anyone wishing to familiarize themselves with the various techniques discussed. The aim of this book is to explain what continuous improvement is and why it's needed; explain how individual departments can explain how and why continuous improvement is important, and helps readers recognize quality control methods in their own workplace and understand how to contribute to existing continuous improvement activities. While many of the case studies and examples are from the NHS, the author includes similar examples from around the world.

The ten years since the First Edition of this book have witnessed revolutionary changes in GP training: appraisal, the new MRCGP exam and competence-based assessments to name but three. Greater availability of information has also transformed the social context of General Practice as a profession. Despite this, the one-to-one relationship between trainer and trainee remains the lynchpin of GP education, and this manual's key principle - that GP trainers are the key source of expertise in this field, and that their experiences and ideas are a vital and still-underused resource - is as important as ever. This new edition, fully revised and updated to reflect the latest changes in both GP training and the profession, remains an essential, comprehensive manual of useful advice for GP trainers written by their peers. Outlining educational methods, training philosophies and reflections from practitioners experienced in the entire spectrum of GP education, it provides a tool box of resources to cover the practicalities of training, including e-portfolios, teaching consultation skills, and numerous tips and tricks. It is now augmented with an array of supporting material that includes checklists, forms and evaluation tools, accessed electronically via a code supplied with the book. This book is vital reading for GP tutors and GP trainers as well as those considering such roles, and for all those who manage and oversee the training of GP registrars. 'The next generation of GPs will face even more changes in the landscape of primary care and it has become even more imperative that we provide high-quality training. This manual will support this process.' - from the Foreword by Steve Field

Despite rapid advances in modern medicine and state-of-the-art health care services in the private sector, primary health care in India remains inaccessible to a majority of the population. Besides, even policymakers often do not have access to real-time data to fine-tune their policies or design appropriate research and intervention programmes. Drawing on field experiences, this volume brings together scholars and practitioners to examine public health from different perspectives. It discusses practical and applied issues related to the health sector, especially the role of Information and Communications Technology (ICT); participation of civil society; service delivery; quality evaluation; consumer empowerment; data management; and research and intervention. This book will be useful to scholars, students and practitioners of public health in developing countries such as India. It will also interest policymakers, health care professionals, and departments of public health management and those concerned with community medicine.

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.

Anxiety disorders are on the rise; many people are looking for resources to help them cope with anxiety, yet most people aren't aware that unresolved grief is a primary underpinning--or that the two are related at all. In her therapy practice and in her own life, Claire Bidwell Smith discovered the connections between anxiety and grief. Now, backed by research, case studies, and interviews, Bidwell Smith breaks down the physiology of anxiety, giving readers a concrete foundation of understanding in order to help them heal the anxiety caused by loss. Taking a big step beyond Elisabeth Kubler-Ross' widely accepted five stages, Anxiety: The Missing Stage of Grief explains the intimate connection between death and grief and how they specifically cause anxiety--unpacking everything from our age-old fears about mortality to the bare vulnerability a loss can make us feel. With concrete tools and coping strategies for panic attacks, getting a handle on anxious thoughts, and more, Bidwell Smith bridges these two emotions in a way that is deeply empathetic and eminently practical.

The Routledge International Handbook of Critical Mental Health offers the most comprehensive collection of theoretical and applied writings to date with which students, scholars, researchers and practitioners within the social and health sciences can systematically problematise the practices, priorities and knowledge base of the Western system of mental health. With the continuing contested nature of psychiatric discourse and the work of psy-professionals, this book is a timely return to theorising the business of mental health as a social, economic, political and cultural project: one which necessarily involves the consideration of wider societal and structural dynamics including labelling and deviance, ideological and social control, professional power, consumption, capital, neoliberalism and self-governance. Featuring original essays from some of the most established international scholars in the area, the Handbook discusses and provides updates on critical theories of mental health from labelling, social constructionism, antipsychiatry, Foucauldian and Marxist approaches to critical feminist, race and queer theory, critical realism, critical cultural theory and mad studies. Over six substantive sections, the collection additionally demonstrates the application of such theoretical ideas and scholarship to key topics including medicalisation and pharmaceuticalisation, the DSM, global psychiatry, critical histories of mental health, and talk therapy. Bringing together the latest theoretical work and empirical case studies from the US, the UK, Australia, New Zealand, Europe and Canada, the Routledge International Handbook of Critical Mental Health demonstrates the continuing need to think critically about mental health and illness, and will be an essential resource for all who study or work in the field.

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.

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.

Written by two therapists with extensive business experience, Mastering the Financial Dimension of Your Psychotherapy Practice addresses the clinical and financial challenges of establishing and maintaining a successful private practice. This book contains updated content on investing strategies, changes in the insurance marketplace, and trends in the marketing of a psychotherapy practice. The first of five sections explores the life cycle of the modern therapy practice, offering best business and investing practices for each phase. In the second and third sections, the authors consider the emotional dimension in the development of a private practice. The fourth section offers a basic course in financial planning, including an investigation into five common financial mistakes therapists make and various solutions to each situation. The fifth section is designed to offer a road map of actions to take in establishing a financial plan. Concluding the book is an inspirational discussion of how the therapist in private practice can create a career with meaning, fulfillment, personal satisfaction, and solid financial rewards.

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.

Bringing together experts in the field, this important book considers the underlying risk factors that create situations of psychosocial vulnerability and marginalisation for mothers, from their baby's conception up to a year after birth. Adopting a strengths-based approach, the book looks not only at the incidence and impact of disadvantageous circumstances on women but also explores protective factors at an individual, family, community and service level. It identifies promising evidence-based interventions and sources of resilience. With a distinctive focus on social and cultural diversity, Psychosocial Resilience and Risk in the Perinatal Period considers a wide range of personal circumstances and social groups, including women's experiences of traumatic birth, domestic and family violence, drug and alcohol use and mothering by indigenous, same-sex and disabled women. Throughout, case studies and service user experiences are used to illuminate the issues and illustrate exemplary care practice. International in scope, this book is particularly strong on the implications for care practices and health service delivery within Western models of maternity care. Its applied focus and evidence base makes it eminently suitable for study purposes and professional reference. Of relevance to midwives, health visitors and other health and social care practitioners, Psychosocial Resilience and Risk in the Perinatal Period's final chapters focus on developing resilience amongst professionals and multiprofessional and interagency working.