This book presents a selection of studies that have applied Operational Research methods to improve emergency planning in healthcare, to include both A&E and public health emergencies like epidemic and natural disasters. The studies have delved into qualitative Operational Research like Problem Structuring, Critical Systems Thinking, Soft Systems Methodology, and Qualitative System Dynamics, and also quantitative techniques such as Monte Carlo Simulation, Discrete-event Simulation, and System Dynamics. These techniques have been applied for review and assessment of emergency services, for policy formulation and for facilitating broader public engagement in emergency preparedness and response. Furthermore, this book presents rigorous reviews on the applications of Operational Research in the wider healthcare context. This volume focuses mainly on emergency planning at the strategic level, whereas volume 1 focuses on planning at the operational level. The OR Essentials series presents a unique cross-section of high quality research work fundamental to understanding contemporary issues and research across a range of Operational Research (OR) topics. It brings together some of the best research papers from the highly respected journals of the Operational Research Society, also published by Palgrave Macmillan.

'This book provides the background and practical guidance for all those of us who face challenges for the way we handle medical records. Written by a lawyer and a clinical informatician it provides the fusion between the legal issues and the practical clinical ones. There are clear explanations of the current legal framework, set in the context of real-world applications; the more complex issues that have a significant impact on Policy are also dealt with in depth. The background to 'consent' and the impact that implied and explicit consent can have on the way records are collect and used is particularly well covered. This book has many audiences, all of whom will gain from the easily accessible information within it. Caldicott guardians, research ethics committee members, and all those researchers and clinicians who need to analyze patient information will have a particular need for this handbook. Patients and the public should use it to understand how their healthcare information is protected and used. Its arrival could not have come at a better time' Sir John Pattison, Former Director of Research, Analysis and Information, Department of Health, England.

There is ample opportunity and scope for gynaecology in prim ary care in general practice. Many conditions and problems can be managed successfully in this context without referral to hos pital and specialist care. The first aim of this book is to deal with common problems that are referred for consultant opinion and specialist management to the average District General Hospital by analysing problems of presentation and diagnosis on a symptom-orientated basis. Selection for primary care management as opposed to hospital referral is then considered, following which the wide range of available treatment is evaluated with particular emphasis on the maximum use of up-to-date but proven regimes. The full use of the expertise of the practitioner is highlighted throughout. The second aim is to encourage the practice of primary care gynaecology and to help those doctors who have a special in terest in the subject, while hopefully stimulating others to de velop a similar one. With this in mind, the approach to the problems is realistic and often dogmatic while opportunities for individual management and for practical procedures are kept to the forefront.

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.

Hailed by professional journals and esteemed by primary care physicians, Bronchial Asthma: A Guide for Practical Understanding and Treatment, Sixth Edition, has been fully updated to help physicians face the challenge of diagnosis and management in every variety of patient subpopulation.

The theme of this volume is chronic care, health care systems and services integration. The volume is divided into three sections. The first section focuses on issues that relate to health care providers. The second section contains papers that deal with home and community based services for the elderly and those who need chronic care. The third section provides lessons from countries outside the United States related to the overall themes of chronic care, systems integration and services integration.

These are themes of growing importance in the US health care system as well as in health care systems in most other developed nations. The aging of populations, already underway, and expected to increase in the coming decades will bring changes and challenges to the health care system. Many of these challenges relate to chronic care needs, since chronic care needs are more important in the elderly than in other population groups, although chronic care problems are not limited to the elderly. Once people reach their 40s and 50s, they begin to develop chronic problems. Chronic problems often require both more health care services and more complicated health care services, and thus place an emphasis on services integration.

Here is the first comprehensive cross-disciplinary work to examine the current health situation of our immigrants, successfully integrating the vast literature of diverse fields -- epidemiology, health services research, anthropology, law, medicine, social work, health promotion, and bioethics -- to explore the richness and diversity of the immigrant population from a culturally-sensitive perspective. This unequalled resource examines methodological issues, issues in clinical care and research, health and disease in specific immigrant populations, patterns of specific diseases in immigrant groups in the US, and conclusive insight towards the future. Complete with 73 illustrations, this singular book is the blueprint for where we must go in the future.

The negative consequences of natural hazard events are staggering and growing. Governments are acting to increase community resilience, reduce losses, and facilitate recovery, but these actions do not always yield anticipated consequences. This book is a compelling interdisciplinary analysis of California's efforts to ensure that acute care hospitals survive earthquakes and continue to function in the aftermath. The book weaves together several threads essential to understanding the effectiveness of public policies intended to reduce the consequences of natural hazard events: public policy design and administration, the hazard mitigation investment decision made by targeted organizations, and contextual dynamics.

""A terrific study of shortfalls in the implementation of risk-reduction policy -- highly readable, full of insights, and very policy relevant." "Peter J. May, Donald R. Matthews Distinguished Professor of American Politics, University of Washington, Seattle USA

""This is an exceptional book by three of the leading hazard mitigation researchers and must reading for both scholars and practitioners in the field."" William A. Anderson, National Research Council, National Academy of Sciences."

The purpose of this book is to place computer simulation studies within the paradigm of intervention research that is concerned with comparing the outcomes of health care delivered under different policies. This book presents computer simulation as a tool for testing various policy alternatives that have been developed by decision-makers within health care systems. This approach differs from the use of computer simulation in operations research, where simulation helps determine the configurations of a system that will allow it to function optimally. Although simulation of health care processes is not new, few health care systems have used simulations as a basis for re-engineering the delivery of health services. There is growing appreciation that the complexity of health care processes exceeds the capacity of individual disciplines-health services research, health economics, or operations research-to guide health care reform. In this book, the authors focus on bringing the methodological rigor of evaluative research to the design and analysis of such simulation studies.The book is intended as a reference for health services researchers. It offers a comprehensive description of the methodology of conducting simulation studies in evaluation of service alternatives in surgical care using discrete-event models, including the steps for identifying the clinical and managerial activities of the perioperative process, determining the model requirements, implementing simulation models, designing simulation experiments and analyzing the experimental data, and interpreting and reporting results.The book also offers examples of specific aspects of conducting simulation experiments: how to determine the number of runs needed to estimate the effect of implementing a health care policy; how to allocate the number of runs to study groups in simulation experiments aiming to evaluate policy or management alternatives; and how to use statistical analysis to estimate, interpret, and report effect sizes."

Studies in the US suggest that about 4% of hospital patients are unintentionally harmed by treatment. These many thousands of "accidents" have received little research attention.
This book assumes that medicine may benefit and learn from approaches to safety in other areas and will be a core resource for this topic. The role of new technologies, both as hazards and in improving safety, is an essential new challenge which the book addresses.
The chapters are ordered to accord with their principal emphasis, beginning with conceptual foundations and moving towards safety management.
The first chapter gives an overview of approaches to safety in the psychological and organisational literature and provides essential background information for readers who may not be familiar with the safety literature. The next chapters demonstrate the need to take a long, temporal perspective. Finally, two chapters reflect on the nature of safety management and its particular application in healthcare.

The editors undertook this project to promote the International Conference on Death, Grief, and Bereavement in La Crosse, Wisconsin, USA. Throughout its history, the conference has attracted internationally known speakers. This book illustrates the quality of their presentations. Section One, "Professional Applications in End of Life Care," begins with Currier, Hammer, and Neimeyer's examination of the importance of the social network, including both religion and family, not just the individual, in working with those at the end of their lives. The authors analyse the impact of social support and its health implications. In Chapter 2, Parkes looks at the influence of child development on adult life and bereavement. Rather than simply showing how insecure child development affects loss as adults, he examines how insecure attachments in childhood can lead to extreme attachments to God, homes, territories, political leaders, and symbols and discusses interventions for these extreme attachments. Papadatou (Chapter 3) develops a model for professionals and caregivers who work with the dying. She suggests that those who give care to the dying also have multiple needs and also face suffering, examines the private world of professionals and what is healthy and what is unavoidable, and describes both functional and dysfunctional coping patterns used by professionals. Kobler (Chapter 4) uses case studies to explain how to develop and maintain relationships with children and their families in paediatric palliative care. She offers strategies for using rituals and ways to initiate and maintain relationships with children and their families. Thompson (Chapter 5) focuses on the effects of working in situations involving high levels of emotion and the stress that may result. He makes a strong case that such stress can do harm to individuals, groups, and whole organisations and offers a model for a more holistic approach that incorporates social and organisational strategies and practical ways to prevent and manage stress. Eves-Baine and colleagues (Chapter 6) examine the application of paediatric and adult-based principles to the newborn period. They discuss how to create the best situations for families when life-sustaining medical therapy has been withdrawn, how to support the family, and the ethical challenges that perinatal palliative care presents. The authors offer models for care through the journey of palliative and bereavement care. Section Two, "Facing End of Life and Its Care," begins with Gilbert's chapter presenting a strong argument that caregivers need to honour the multiple tracks that come with dying while maintaining a focus on the wishes of the dying person. He offers ways for the team to better meet the needs of the dying person. Koppleman (Chapter 8) follows the journey of a friend who faced death. It is a powerful story, told from the point of view of the dying in a scholarly fashion. Smith and Potter (Chapter 9) suggest that palliative care for the dying can be defined as offering "comfort care," both for those who are dying and for their loved ones. The authors present a model of the psycho-spiritual side of palliative care as a way of offering comfort to all those involved. Adams (Chapter 10) examines different methods of working with patients and families. It looks at the ways in which such work can be complicated by factors of geographic distance, differences in family reactions, differences in treatment plan concepts, and in meaning making. All of these factors may become stumbling blocks and may prevent the delivery of positive support. Pizzini (Chapter 11) looks at the experience of dying in prison from the perspective of inmates who are terminally ill, prison medical staff, and prison security staff. She discusses how to maintain dignity of the dying and a "good death" while in prison. McCord (Chapter 12) discusses attempts by hospice patients and others diagnosed with terminal illnesses to die either by their own hand or with physician assistance. She presents common risk factors, strategies to assess the degree of risk and possible plans for suicide and suicide postvention in the context of hospice. Section Three, "Cultural Considerations in End-of-Life Care" begins with The End of Life: Two Perspectives in which Robert G. Stevenson looks at two perspectives on the end of life that are not often examined in terms of their impact on the individual and his/her attitude toward this time. The two perspectives are that of adolescents, and that are shown in a military ceremony used in the 18th and 19th centuries, the Feu de Joie or Fire of Joy. In Chapter Fourteen, Janet McCord discusses suicide attempts by hospice patients and others diagnosed with terminal illnesses to die either by their own hand or with physician assistance. Connor's description of the need for hospice and palliative care around the world and the challenges of developing palliative care globally, and offers models that can be used around the world. Cox and Cox (Chapter 15) suggest ways to offer end-of-life care to Roman Catholics who do not fit the traditional model of hospice care and examine special needs, theology, and rituals. Cox and Sullivan (Chapter 16) offer suggestions on end-of-life care for American Indians, explaining cultural differences among American Indians and suggesting ways to improve care to a group that is generally neglected in hospice care. Smith (Chapter 17) looks at the cultural differences and understandings of Fundamentalist Christian views of a "good death" and the afterlife, ways to negotiate faith understandings that complicate end-of-life care, and ways to comfort individuals who may be marginalised because they do not share the theological views of the dying individual or key family members.

This book is an attempt to bring value to the enterprise pursuits in the areas of research and innovation around the specific issues in terms of topic selection, open data resources and researcher orientation. Over the last 300 years, industrial revolutions have had game-changing impact on societies. Presently, by and large, we are at the crossroads of the fourth industrial revolution, where phygital systems are going to play a massive role, where digital systems can simulate and go beyond the limitations of the physical world, thereby enabling a new world order. This transformation is cutting across every sphere known to mankind. The world will become a globally localized marketplace. In today's business world, sustainability is a corporate agenda. Enterprises are also aiming to be purpose-driven, adaptive and resilient to disruptions. The contributions to community and environment are part of their corporate branding. The book explores and presents a part of the open data sets from government institutions to achieve the sustainable goals at local level, in turn contributing towards global mission. As the topic suggests, the authors are looking at some of the specific issues in the areas of environment, agriculture and health care through the lens of data science. The authors believe that the above three areas chosen have deep relevance in today's world. The intent is to explore these issues from a data and analytics perspective and identify cracks through which deeper inroads can be made. Conscious efforts have been taken to make use of all the major data science techniques like prediction, classification, clustering, and correlation. Given the above background, deeper waters will be explored through the contents of this book.

Medical practitioners are continuing to advance their knowledge of the latest technologies in order to keep up with the opportunities for faster and more reliable treatments for patients. Advancing Medical Practice through Technology: Applications for Healthcare Delivery, Management, and Quality focuses on the latest medical practices through the utilization of technologies and innovative concepts. This book is an essential reference source for researchers, academics, and industry professionals interested in the latest advancements in the healthcare, biomedicine, and medical communications fields.

This edited book provides a first overview of how populist parties responded to the COVID-19 pandemic crisis in Europe. Although populism would normally benefit from crisis situations (e.g., political representation or economic crises), the peculiar nature of this health crisis does not make the benefit obvious. For it to be exploited, a crisis must be politicized. While populists have tried to take advantage of the crisis situation, the impossibility of taking ownership of the COVID-19 issue has made the crisis hard to be exploited. In particular, populists in power have tried to depoliticize the pandemic, whereas radical right-populists in opposition tried to politicize the crisis, though failing to gain the relevant public support. This book considers populist parties in eight European democracies, providing a framework of analysis for their responses to the COVID-19 crisis. It does so by engaging with the literature on crisis and populism from a theoretical perspective and through the lens of the politicization process.

In 1983 Congress changed the way Medicare pays for hospital care. Under the new prospective payment system, hospitals are paid a fixed rate, set in advance, to cover a patient's stay. If costs are less than the fixed rates, the hospital keeps the profit; if the costs are more, it absorbs the loss. From the beginning, prospective payment was recognized as a revolutionary change in Medicare. Congress wanted a system that would make federal expenditures more predictable and controllable, and expected hospitals to respond by becoming more efficient. Some observers have hailed it as a successful way to control the spiraling costs of the Medicare program. Others have criticized it as arbitrary and a threat to the health of the elderly. In the six years since prospective payment was introduced, a substantial amount of evidence has accumulated about its effects. Russell looks at the major characteristics of the rate payment system, how it has changed the pattern of medical service, how these changes have affected the health of the beneficiaries, and the system's effects on Medicare outlays. She reviews what is known and what needs to be learned to arrive at a valid assessment of the system. Moreover, she contributes to the larger debate on Medicare by making what are frequently quite technical evaluations accessible to the general public.

This volume covers some of the topics that are related to the rapidly growing field of biomedical informatics. In June 11-12, 2010 a workshop entitled 'Optimization and Data Analysis in Biomedical Informatics' was organized at The Fields Institute. Following this event invited contributions were gathered based on the talks presented at the workshop, and additional invited chapters were chosen from world's leading experts. In this publication, the authors share their expertise in the form of state-of-the-art research and review chapters, bringing together researchers from different disciplines and emphasizing the value of mathematical methods in the areas of clinical sciences. This work is targeted to applied mathematicians, computer scientists, industrial engineers, and clinical scientists who are interested in exploring emerging and fascinating interdisciplinary topics of research. It is designed to further stimulate and enhance fruitful collaborations between scientists from different disciplines.

In Eliminating Healthcare Disparities in America, Dr. Richard Allen Williams assembles the very best scholars on healthcare disparities to raise the public consciousness of this issue. These experts provide the benefits of their experience and expertise as a resource for helping others to make judicious determinations about how to proceed in efforts to improve the disparities in American healthcare. Arranged into discrete categories, this volume contains comprehensive coverage, both historical and current, of the healthcare disparity crisis currently plaguing our country in hopes of leading us all to a brighter future. The volume includes chapters of examples that are currently working and concludes with recommendations on how to move forward. The text is not intended to be one in which all of the answers are given to the multitude of problems. Instead, Eliminating Healthcare Disparities in America is intended to raise the reader's level of consciousness and concern and to increase the knowledge base about the issues. This groundbreaking text will be an initial spark that ignites the fire that may one day eliminate healthcare disparities in communities around the country.

Building on the success of Dr. Williams's widely influential first book Eleminating Healthcare Disparities in America: Beyond the IOM Report, this new volume takes a fresh and timely look at the current state of healthcare reform and the progress and problems we face in the pursuit of healthcare equity. This book focuses on how the elimination of disparities can be accomplished through targeted efforts made within the context of reform. Comprising the combined efforts of the nation's best health policy analysts, researchers, key opinion and thought leaders, and clinicians, this book addresses both current and impending legislation and future movements in healthcare. With the knowledge that the problem of disparities extends beyond the present political arena into the larger scope of all aspects of delivery, the authors provide critical analysis of the causation of the disparities, a striking call to action with implementable strategies for advancing equity, and provide insightful examples of what has worked.

This edited volume captures and communicates the best thinking on how to improve healthcare by improving the delivery of services -- providing care when and where it is needed most -- through application of state-of-the-art scheduling systems. Over 12 chapters, the authors cover aspects of setting appointments, allocating healthcare resources, and planning to ensure that capacity matches needs for care. A central theme of the book is increasing healthcare efficiency so that both the cost of care is reduced and more patients have access to care. This can be accomplished through reduction of idle time, lessening the time needed to provide services and matching resources to the needs where they can have the greatest possible impact on health. Within their chapters, authors address: (1) Use of scheduling to improve healthcare efficiency. (2) Objectives, constraints and mathematical formulations. (3) Key methods and techniques for creating schedules. (4) Recent developments that improve the available problem solving methods. (5) Actual applications, demonstrating how the methods can be used. (6) Future directions in which the field of research is heading. Collectively, the chapters provide a comprehensive state-of-the-art review of models and methods for scheduling the delivery of patient care for all parts of the healthcare system. Chapter topics include setting appointments for ambulatory care and outpatient procedures, surgical scheduling, nurse scheduling, bed management and allocation, medical supply logistics and routing and scheduling for home healthcare.

This book brings together a variety of the best papers from an international research symposium on organisational behaviour in healthcare. It includes contributions from key names such as Sandra Dawson and Peter Spurgeon with a foreword by Rosemary Stewart. Also including chapters from Australia, Canada and Europe, it is consciously international in perspective and aims to relate the public sector agenda as a comparator for developments in the US.