Implementation of guidelines in the health system is a major undertaking, especially in developing countries. An important constraint in guideline development in developing countries is that the guideline recommendations must suit local conditions and must make use of available resources. This is a challenge because the health systems of developing countries have a high burden of disease and little resources; therefore, guidelines must rely on cost-effective healthcare interventions. The BACIS program study was initiated to address some of these challenges in the dissemination and utilization of maternal health guidelines. The BACIS program was piloted, and the results showed that the BACIS program could assist in improving compliance of nurses with the national maternity care guidelines. This is an impressive finding and step forward for maternal healthcare in developing countries. Developing Maternal Health Decision Support Systems in Developing Countries discusses public health aspects of the design and implementation of clinical decision support systems in developing country contexts. Specifically, it focuses largely on the design and evaluation of the BACIS program in South Africa. This is supplemented with a conversation on the possible future research directions in the BACIS program study along with the outlook for clinical decision support systems in developing country contexts in general. This book is ideal for e-health system designers and implementers, managers and policymakers in the area of e-health in developing countries, personnel from NPOs and donor agencies, government officials, IT consultants, medical professionals, practitioners, stakeholders, researchers, academicians, and students who are interested in how decision support systems such as BACIS are being used to improve maternal health in developing countries.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, many people had to cope with isolation due to lockdown policies that forced them to engage in fewer social activities. People were confined to the small space of their dwellings and felt constrained and socially isolated and deprived of meaningful social interaction and affection, which caused stress and anxiety. Several initiatives were put in place to help diminish the effects of isolation, such as those involving literature either through writing or reading. Managing Pandemic Isolation With Literature as Therapy explains the positive medical and psychological effects of literature and writing during a pandemic at a time when isolation prevented people from engaging with others socially. Covering topics such as clinical psychology, brain neurology, and stress, this reference work is ideal for psychologists, medical professionals, policymakers, government officials, researchers, scholars, academicians, practitioners, instructors, and students.

Hospital funding plays an important role in strengthening healthcare and medical resources. Utilizing comprehensive costing systems to accommodate clinical and financial data leads to improved patient care both clinically and financially. Clinical Costing Techniques and Analysis in Modern Healthcare Systems provides innovative insights into the connections between statistical information and financial systems within clinical settings. The content within this publication delves into business intelligence, clinical decision making, and electronic health records. It is geared towards medical practitioners and professionals, hospital administrators, and researchers seeking valuable insights centered on clinical variations of healthcare data as well as the role of information systems in linking productivity and performance management.

Fundamentals of industrial hygiene is an introductory book for safety professionals that provides an overview in relation to the legislative requirements and occupational hygiene. This book reviews the aspects of safety from the inception of a hazard through the establishment of a hygiene programme and risk assessment. The book addresses the fundamental aspects of occupational hygiene, human physiology and industrial diseases linked to hygiene stressors. The topic in Fundamentals of industrial hygiene was chosen to assist the safety professional to manage the safety gaps in an organisation and to assist with the development of a hygiene programme through effective risk assessment. An effective hygiene programme stems from an effective safety leadership and co-operative cross-functional teams that strives for continual improvement of the organisations safety management system. The book begins with an historical overview of occupational hygiene and givens an overview of the legal framework of occupational hygiene. It is essential that the safety professional to understand the interaction of toxins in the human body, thus the book covers chapter related to human physiology and toxicology. From this exposure control and sampling strategy gives the safety professional an overview the basis of occupational hygiene and hygiene management. Fundamentals of industrial hygiene will assist safety professionals, safety management students, Chief Executive officers and employers to establish an occupational hygiene programmes within their organisation.

Japan has achieved the world's highest life-expectancy under a universal health coverage system. The purpose of this book is to discuss effective management accounting methods for solving various issues now faced by the healthcare system in Japan (low birth-rate and aging society, issues in medical public finance, issues attendant to advancements of healthcare services, etc.). This book is written by Japanese researchers who are active and at the forefront of management accounting research for healthcare, such as Takami Matsuo, Kazunori Ito, Yutaka Kato, and so on. This book shows the actual use of cost information, cost-management, and management-control methods for healthcare organizations in Japan, and examines how to adopt management accounting methods used by companies in healthcare management, which would be a useful reference for future healthcare management in countries that might face similar issues as Japan in the future.

The COVID-19 pandemic has laid bare the world's vulnerabilities to health and economic ruin from disease outbreaks. But the pandemic merely reveals fundamental weaknesses and contradictions in global health. What are the roots of discontents in global health? How do geo-politics, power dynamics, knowledge gaps, racism, and corruption affect global health? Is foreign aid for health due for a radical overhaul?This book is an incisive guide to the practice of global health in real life. Global health policy is at a crossroads. It is on trial at the interface between the Global North and the Global South. There has been remarkable progress in health outcomes over the past century. Yet, countries face a complex landscape of lofty ambitions in the form of political commitments to Universal Health Coverage, Human Capital, and Global Health Security. These ambitions are tempered by multiple constraints. Investors in global health must navigate a minefield of uneven progress, great expectations, and denials of scientific evidence by entrenched interests. That terrain is further complicated by the hegemonic suppression of innovation that threatens the status quo and by self-perpetuating cycles of dependency of the Global South on the Global North.This book is an unflinching scrutiny of concepts and cases by a veteran of global health policy and practice. It holds a mirror to the world and lays out pathways to a better future. The book is a must-have GPS for policy makers and practitioners as they navigate the maze of global health.

Powerful new approaches and advances in medical systems drive increasingly high expectations for healthcare providers internationally. The form of digital healthcare - a suite of new technologies offering significant benefits in cost and quality - allow institutions to keep pace with society's needs. This book covers the need for responsible innovation in this area, exploring the issues of implementation as well as potential negative consequences to ensure digital healthcare delivers for the benefit of all stakeholders. This book offers a considered view on what a responsible innovation process might involve and how this will enable multiple stakeholders - users, medics, businesses and policymakers - to create a system of delivering better care at lower costs. Illustrated by international case studies, the contributing authors explore the dimensions of responsible innovation with patient engagement and the ways in which this can lead to better design, enhanced diffusion of knowledge and improvement in healthcare. A much-needed exploration of the role of innovation in healthcare with patients in mind, this book will be essential for academics in innovation, ethics, social entrepreneurship and healthcare studies.

In this well-documented book, Alain Enthoven develops the ideas of consumer choice and managed competition of alternative health care financing and delivery systems, as well as describing ways to improve quality and reduce the cost of health care. He demonstrates how these ideas could be applied in the American employment-based health insurance model, how similar ideas have been introduced in the British National Health Service; how these ideas have been applied in the Netherlands; and the need for integrated comprehensive care systems. This unique anthology traces the development of two important and related themes. Firstly, the 'output' of the health services industry has been produced by disaggregated physicians, nurses and other health professionals, hospitals, drugs and device companies that somehow combine to serve the patient. Progress in quality and the economy requires the services of these components to be integrated into coherent systems in which the incentives of all providers are aligned with the needs and wants of patients for quality affordable care. Secondly, the book argues that the framework that can provide such incentives, is an appropriately designed form of market competition among systems of care seeking to serve value-conscious patients. Public officials, scholars and policy analysts from developing countries will find here a set of ideas for how to improve incentives for greater value for money. Students of health economics, policy and organization, as well as journalists and public officials interested in the use of public policy to improve efficiency in health care systems, will also find much to interest them in this book.

With advancing technology and the digitization of the modern era, businesses are required to adopt the latest innovations computer science and information technology have to offer. The field of home healthcare must utilize the finest available operations management systems in order to remain relevant in a globalized world while also providing the best treatment possible to its patients. Transportation, Logistics, and Supply Chain Management in Home Healthcare: Emerging Research and Opportunities is an essential reference source that provides theoretical and empirical research on logistics management and transportation and scheduling routing and their applications in home healthcare and logistics. While highlighting topics such as hybrid energy, scheduling optimization, and forecasting techniques, this book is ideally designed for outpatient doctors and nurses, transportation professionals, logisticians, home healthcare managers, computer scientists, logistic engineers, health practitioners, academicians, researchers, and students.

In a powerful blending of memoir and practical strategies from a medical doctor's perspective, The Gift of Caring: Saving Our Parents - and ourselves - from the Perils of Modern Healthcare reveals the hidden side of modern healthcare practices for aging Americans. This ground-breaking book, co-written by award-winning author Marcy Houle and nationally-recognized geriatrician and public health advocate, Elizabeth Eckstrom MD MPH, sheds new light on aging by showing it from twin perspectives: the story of a daughter desperately seeking help for the parents she loves, and a geriatrician who offers life-changing strategies that can protect our loved ones and ourselves. Today, for many older adults, the medical delivery system is confusing, fragmented, and ill-equipped to provide comprehensive, person-centered care. Under our current healthcare model, thousands of aging persons face unnecessary suffering, hospitalizations and nursing home stays, and even preventable death. Seniors and families often feel powerless as they travel this sad journey. Not having knowledge of aging's changes, they resign themselves to believing there is nothing anyone can do to help, while some health care professionals simply write off symptoms seniors endure as "just old age." But as Marcy Houle discovered in caring for her parents, many of the problems often are not "just old age." Further, the real issue is not that the answers to ease suffering don't exist. Rather, what we need to know is generally not available to the general public. Even more concerning, many health care professionals have had little or no training in the care of older adults. The Gift of Caring hopes to change that. It is written to give empowerment to all older adults, family members, and health care professionals, by sharing much needed knowledge and practical strategies. The Gift of Caring shows the best ways to advocate for our parent's health care ... and our own ... by giving us the tools we need to insist upon the better way. Your parents and you deserve the best healthcare as you age- But there are so many reasons why that's not happening.You can change that.