This book contains two Open Access chapters. The 21st volume of Advances in Health Care Management presents informed commentaries solicited from leaders across the field of health care management. Each chapter tackles a specific health care challenge, describing the state of the research on the challenge, identifying appropriate organizational innovations to respond to the challenge, and setting out a future research agenda. Expert authors consider what is known, what is not known, and what is needed to fill the gaps and advance knowledge. Responding to The Grand Challenges in Healthcare Via Organizational Innovation explores in detail varied scenarios and suggestions for dealing with unexpected crises, improving diversity, equity and inclusion in health care, building strategic alliances for inter-sector collaboration, as well as analyzing organizational governance and physician financial risk models.

For more than a century, New York City's public hospitals have played a major role in ensuring that people of every class had a place to turn for care. A comparison of the history of Bellevue Hospital with that of the private New York Hospital illuminates the unique contribution that public hospitals have made to the city and confirms their continued value today. This book is set against the rich economic, cultural and political backdrop of new York City, which played an important role in the fortunes of both hospitals.

Employment relations within the health sector have undergone radical reform over recent years. This book is an important new study that examines the responses of managers and workers to these different reforms, at both national and local level. Bringing together analyses of both employment relations and public sector management, the book focuses on understanding why certain initiatives have been adopted, how managers have responded to them and the consequences of the HR modernisation agenda. Topics covered include: HR strategy and structure at the workplace employee involvement and union influence pay modernisation management of work. Featuring detailed case study research in three NHS trusts, the book illustrates precisely how government policies are implemented in the workplace and in doing so offers a unique insight into the sector's changing work environment. A comprehensive study of atopical area, this book will be of interest to students and academics in health service management, human resource management and employment relations.

Statistics and evidence-based medicine are assessed in most postgraduate and undergraduate medical examinations and degrees in health sciences. All clinicians have to acquire skills in this area. This book aims to provide a brief overview of basic medical statistics and the numerical aspects of evidence-based medicine to give realistic worked examples to illustrate the interpretation of studies relevant to clinical practice and to allow examination practice. It aims to cover all major topics covered in the undergraduate and postgraduate examinations. Each chapter begins with an overview and summary of the main points followed by worked examples and exercises with full answers. It will be ideal for all postgraduate medical examination candidates. Other clincians and undergraduate students in medicine and health sciences will also find it useful.

The second edition of this very successful 'how to do it' book on clinical governance. * The second edition of this successful book now includes more detail on NICE, CHI and other government initiatives * Expanded to include information appropriate for the whole of the UK * Completely updated in line with recent changes in the NHS * Additional examples of good practice from primary care and other specialties

"Misadventures in Health Care: Inside Stories" presents an alternative approach to attributing the cause of medical error solely to the health care provider. That alternative, the systems approach, pursues why an incident occurs in terms of factors in the context of care that affect the care provider to induce an error. The basis for this approach is the fact that an error is an act, an act is behavior, and behavior is a function of the person interacting with the environment. Eleven vignettes illustrate the importance of the systems approach by describing health care incidents from the perspective of the care providers--the perspective that can identify the factors that actually affect the provider. These stories provide general readers with opportunities to apply their knowledge in analyzing incidents to identify error-inducing factors.
This book is important reading for policymakers, researchers and practitioners in law and in all medical specialties, and professionals in the social sciences, human factors, and engineering. In addition to sensitizing the reader to the importance of contextual factors in error, "Misadventures in Health Care" is a case study reference to supplement texts in professional schools such as law and medicine, as well as the full range of academic disciplines. It also is important reading for the general public because it presents an approach for addressing a very pressing social problem-- that of misadventures in health care.

Misadventures in Health Care: Inside Stories presents an alternative approach to attributing the cause of medical error solely to the health care provider. That alternative, the systems approach, pursues why an incident occurs in terms of factors in the context of care that affect the care provider to induce an error. The basis for this approach is the fact that an error is an act, an act is behavior, and behavior is a function of the person interacting with the environment. Eleven vignettes illustrate the importance of the systems approach by describing health care incidents from the perspective of the care providers--the perspective that can identify the factors that actually affect the provider. These stories provide general readers with opportunities to apply their knowledge in analyzing incidents to identify error-inducing factors. This book is important reading for policymakers, researchers and practitioners in law and in all medical specialties, and professionals in the social sciences, human factors, and engineering. In addition to sensitizing the reader to the importance of contextual factors in error, Misadventures in Health Care is a case study reference to supplement texts in professional schools such as law and medicine, as well as the full range of academic disciplines. It also is important reading for the general public because it presents an approach for addressing a very pressing social problem-- that of misadventures in health care.

"A well organized and readable text on evaluating health programs. It covers the essentials of choosing an evaluation design, planning and conducting the evaluation, and using the results of the evaluation. It is a book that should be on the shelf of persons doing and teaching health program evaluation and should be seriously considered as a text for evaluation classes."

? RONALD ANDERSEN, Wasserman Professor in Health Services, UCLA"I found many instances where I thought students would get key concepts and ideas more quickly than they would from other texts. I was thrilled to see a discussion of ethics and culture in the text! The author provides clear explanations of important concepts and uses examples throughout the text, a strength of the book. I especially appreciate the author's detailed descriptions of program models and how they can be used in Chapter 3."

? ROBIN LIN MILLER, University of Illinois at Chicago

"This book is useful because it keeps the main concepts of program evaluation in an easy-to-follow format. The way the parts of a program evaluation were put together to resemble the parts of a play allowed me to review familiar material in detail, but at the same time remind me of the structure of an evaluation. This was useful for me to reintegrate, as sometimes when one is involved in particular "scenes" of an evaluation, they lose sight of the "act" or the "play." It gave me a great reminder of the big picture."

University of Alabama, BirminghamAs more and more money is spent developing programs and services to solve health problems, how can one know if a specific health program works or what it would take to improve it? Aimed at addressing this issue, The Practice of Health Program Evaluation provides readers with the methods to evaluate health programs and the expertise to navigate the political terrain so as to work more effectively with decision makers and other groups. To convey these principles, Grembowski uses the metaphor of evaluation being a three-act play with a variety of actors and interest groups, each having a role that involves entering and exiting the "stage" at different points in the evaluation process. The first section (Act I) shows evaluators how to work with decision makers and other groups to define the question they want answered about a program and how to develop evaluation questions. Act II covers the methods for selecting among one or more evaluation designs (experimental and quasi-experimental designs, program implementation, sample size, measurement, and cost-effectiveness analysis) to answer questions about the program. And, Act III covers the use of the answers, including methods for developing formal dissemination plans, factors that influence whether evaluation findings are used or not, and major challenges facing the discipline in the next decade. Through the use of relevant examples and the explanation of each step, this book will enable readers to apply research methods in the practice of health evaluation.

There is little debate that health care in the United States is in need of reform. But where should those improvements begin? With insurers? Drug makers? The doctors themselves? In Big Med, David Dranove and Lawton Robert Burns argue that we're overlooking the most ubiquitous cause of our costly and underperforming system: megaproviders, the expansive health care organizations that have become the face of American medicine. Your local hospital is likely part of one. Your doctors, too. And the megaproviders are bad news for your health and your wallet. Drawing on decades of combined expertise in health care consolidation, Dranove and Burns trace Big Med's emergence in the 1990s, followed by its swift rise amid false promises of scale economies and organizational collaboration. In the decades since, megaproviders have gobbled up market share and turned independent physicians into salaried employees of big bureaucracies, while delivering on none of their early promises. For patients this means higher costs and lesser care. Meanwhile, physicians report increasingly low morale, making it all but impossible for most systems to implement meaningful reforms. In Big Med, Dranove and Burns combine their respective skills in economics and management to provide a nuanced explanation of how the provision of health care has been corrupted and submerged under consolidation. They offer practical recommendations for improving competition policies that would reform megaproviders to actually achieve the efficiencies and quality improvements they have long promised. This is an essential read for understanding the current state of the health care system in America-and the steps urgently needed to create an environment of better care for all of us.

Increasing evidence has demonstrated that caregivers of dementia victims are at risk for depression and other medical problems. In what ways can health care providers improve or maintain the well-being of dementia caregivers?

This volume provides an overview of emerging themes in dementia caregiving research and presents a broad array of practical strategies for reducing caregiver distress, including interventions for specific populations such as ethnic minority caregivers, male caregivers, and caregivers with diverse sexual orientations. Innovative approaches include the value of partnering with primary care physicians to improve quality of life for both patient and caregiver and the use of technological advances to help distressed caregivers.

A timely, cutting edge book written for clinicians of varying backgrounds who provide direct services to families of dementia victims.
For Further Information, Please Click Here!

This Reader includes material relevant to everyone involved in developing new relationships in health and social care. Alongside articles on social care as traditionally conceived, it offers articles from a wide variety of settings, including those in health and education. It brings together classic management texts and material with a management focus, providing a stimulating range of perspectives on the manager's role. In the management of something as complex as care, this must involve:
* listening to service users
* maintaining professional values
* enabling participation
* facilitating learning.
The Managing Care Reader reflects these imperatives as it focuses in on the experience of being in the front line. In four parts, it looks at how managers experience what they do, their managerial responsibilities, the key professional issues, and the importance of the organisational environment. It offers a rich resource for all those undertaking management courses or moving into frontline management roles in the new world of social care.

The Diabetes LIFEMAP changes the way chronic diabetes care is delivered forever. The LIFEMAP raises diabetes care for the primary care and ancillary healthcare provider to the level of world renown diabetes expert, David Bleich, MD. For patients, the LIFEMAP provides real-time diabetes care that changes a "tough-to-manage" disease into a shared, personal, and efficient management experience. The LIFEMAP can be used as a stand-alone diabetes management tool or can be combined with our cloud based LIFEMAP platform through GoMo Health. Now care can be delivered seamlessly at home for both provider and patient. The Diabetes LIFEMAP is the playbook for 21st century diabetes care. It starts with an understanding of the basic principles of insulin secretion and moves to a discussion of how the LIFEMAP evolved and why it is such a powerful management tool. Finally, case studies are provided to reinforce basic concepts of LIFEMAP diabetes care with real world examples. Taken together, The Diabetes LIFEMAP succeeds in helping healthcare providers overcome a difficult to manage disease and provides patients with an optimal diabetes outcome with the least amount of effort necessary to achieve high level results.

Chapter 1 offers an overview of the basic computer technology. Each succeeding chapter, describes the problems in medicine, followed by a review in chronological sequence of why and how computers were applied to try to meet these problems. Only the technical aspects of computer hardware, software, and communications are discussed as they are necessary to explain how the technology was applied. This approach generally led to defining the objectives for applications of medical informatics. At the end of each chapter, the author summarizes his personal views and interpretations of the chapter contents. Although the concurrent evolution of medical informatics in Canada, Europe, and Japan certainly influenced workers in the United States, the scope of this historical review is limited to the development of medical informatics within the United States. Furthermore, this review is limited to electronic digital computers; it excludes mechanical, analog, and hybrid computers.

In 1977 the average American spent $755 per year on health care, most physicians functioned as independent practitioners, and only 5.6 million people under the age of 65 were enrolled in HMOs. Twenty years later, per capita expenditures had more than tripled, most physicians practiced within a managed care environment, and HMO enrollment stood at 62 million. Keeping pace with these and other changes in the U.S. health system has been the job of the National Medical Expenditure Surveys (NMES). Since they were first started in the 1970s, these federal government surveys have defined our basic understanding of how individuals and families use and pay for America's health care systems and have directly influenced national policy changes, health care reform, and cost-control strategies.

Informing American Health Care Policy is the definitive resource that analyzes the overall effect of the National Medical Expenditure Surveys. This important edited collection is written by an outstanding panel of experts from a variety of disciplines and includes contributions from nationally known economists, sociologists, and survey researchers. Rich in insights and lessons learned, Informing American Health Care Policy
Offers a critical assessment and a discerning overview of NMES' outcomes
Describes how the design strategies and methods evolved over the past two decades
Provides a detailed discussion about the collection of a wide range of data on health insurance and employment status
Addresses troublesome issues in defining and measuring access in vulnerable populations
Summarizes the multiple and complex issues of survey design, population sampling, and analytical method
Demonstrates the indispensability of NMES data in the health reform debates

The contributors examine how the current health care environment reflects the successes and failures of previous research and makes recommendations on how to adapt survey research to be more effective in the future.

The Important Lessons Learned from the National Medical Expenditure Surveys

Informing American Health Care Policy provides a critical perspective on the National Medical Expenditure Surveys (NMES) and how these surveys have responded to the sometimes conflicting challenges of policy and research. Sponsored by the Agency for Health Care Policy and Research and written by a stellar panel of interdisciplinary experts including contributions from nationally known economists, sociologists, and survey researchers, this essential resource is filled with lessons learned and emerging strategies for the future.

"I enjoyed reading this book. Thanks to the major investment in health expenditure and insurance surveys and the increasingly sophisticated analytic capacity described in this volume, policy officials now have a much more precise and up-to-date understanding of the implications of policy choices."--Karen Davis, president, The Commonwealth Fund; developed President Carter's 1977 national health reform proposal

"In this important book, the lead researchers associated with NMES describe the development of this rich data source and, in a series of well-crafted papers, illustrate the use of these data in informing major areas of health policy. It is a must read for anyone interested in American health policy-especially for younger professionals entering this growing field."--Uwe E.Reinhardt, James Madison Professor of Political Economy, Princeton University

"National health expenditure surveys have provided policymakers with the information they need to make informed decisions. This volume tells us about the evolution and contributions of the federal government's most ambitious health care survey. I recommend it for those interested in improving the quality of data available to those who formulate policy."--John K. Iglehart, founding editor, Health Affairs

"Thoughtful and informed reflections on the lessons learned by NMES. Provides sound guidance and procedures required to address the enduring policy questions of Who's covered? Who pays?, and How much? in the emerging U.S. health care environment of the future."--Lu Ann Aday, professor of behavioral sciences and management and policy sciences, the University of Texas School of Public Health; and author, Designing and Conducting Health Surveys, Fourth Edition

Extremely practical and packed with current examples, Introduction to Health Care: Finance and Accounting delivers a comprehensive overview of the business side of healthcare. This entry-level healthcare finance book offers detailed discussions of cost reimbursement programs, economic factors driving the rising costs of medical services, and healthcare reform through the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010. It explains the basics of healthcare accounting and finance, from accounting fundamentals, operating the cash drawer and bank reconciliation through the more complex issues of cash management, budgeting and variance analysis, and revenue cycle management.

This comprehensive, yet accessible, text demystifies the challenging area of competence assessement in medicine and the health sciences, providing a clear framework and the tools for anyone working or studying in this area. Written by a single, highly experienced, author, the content benefits from uniformity of style and is supported and enhanced by a range of pedagogic features including cases, questions and summaries. Essential reading for all students and practitioners of medical education, it will also be an invaluable guide for allied health professionals and psychologists with a general interest in assessment, evaluation and measurement and a useful library reference.

Under managed care, health care has become a sometimes uneasy partnership between consumers, health care providers, and the communities they serve. Empowered by a broadly held understanding of medicine and an ability to collect and use performance information to improve health services, this alliance is reshaping our local health systems. In this constantly changing environment, competitive advantage will go to those physicians who are fast-and focused-in their ability to transform their practice into accountable, cooperative business units-reshaping society's expectations of medicine and ultimately improving the delivery of health care.

In The New Health Partners, physician Stephen Prather reveals how doctors can regain stewardship of their medical practices and strengthen their crucial role in the health care of their local communities. Prather?a nationally known physician consultant, educator, practitioner, and speaker--gives physicians effective techniques and practical advice needed to deliver bottom-line results.
Prather shows physicians, medical directors, and administrators how they can acquire the essential skills of leadership and team development for use in both office and community health settings. Step-by-step, Prather explains how to apply the transformative power of the "Six Dimensions of Health Systems" to integrate delivery of care, align economic and non-economic incentives, manage chronic illness, empower clinical groups, work with patients and their families, and redesign care for community benefit.

This groundbreaking book explores how to
A- Put in place successful methods for creating economic incentives to motivate physician change
A- Map outproven approaches for achieving clinical quality improvement and efficient office practices
A- Gain insight into a proven strategy for engaging the community in a rewarding partnership
A- Combine effective management principles, time-honored values, and useful guidelines for the most skillful use of performance data

The New Health Partners is based on the information gathered from in-depth organizational and marketplace assessments and surveys of physician-leaders from across the country. This vital resource also includes numerous examples of best practices that have proven to be easily reproducible, cost-effective, and beneficial to patients. This hands-on volume will prove to be an invaluable aid for any physician-leader who wants to work smarter and direct a health care organization to be ethically, clinically, and fiscally sound.

Discover t-he Six Dimensions of Health Systems That Can Transform Your Medical Practice

The New Health Partners is an essential handbook for physicians who want to reshape their practices to prosper within the managed care environment. This key resource offers a blueprint for helping physicians, medical directors, and administrators create the needed partnerships and cooperative business alliances, put in place the best practices that will maximize accountability, and, ultimately, achieve success in disease management.

"Steve Prather's book encapsulates the key forces in health care today. If followed, his practical solutions will dramatically change the way we organize and deliver care."--Henry G. Walker, president and CEO, Providence/Health System

"Prather has written a book full of helpful insights, tips, and examples for thosetrying to make sense of the leadership opportunity facing doctors today and tomorrow. His strategies and stories can help those who lead physician practice today and guide those who teach tomorrow's doctors."-Paul Batalden, professor and director, Health Care Improvement Leadership Development Center for the Evaluative Clinical Sciences, Dartmouth Medical School

"Using his vast experience and keen insight, Steve Prather presents exciting concepts and practices that will contribute greatly to the improvement of the delivery and quality of clinical care into the next millennium-a major concern for all health care leaders."-Dan S. Wilford, president, Memorial Hermann Healthcare System

"I urge the leaders of health care systems to read and study this enlightening book together. And, since integration, alignment, improvement, teamwork, and partnering are relevant activities at all levels of an organization, it would be wise for leaders to encourage and enable the many natural work groups in their organization to similarly study, digest, and adapt the rich knowledge available in [this book]. Doing so will produce a much more effective and competitive health care system."-From the foreword by James S. Roberts, senior vice president, physician leadership, VHA, Inc.

Risk management, assessment and reduction, alongside patient involvement, is an essential part of the current NHS reforms. This book draws together and summarises the latest information on risk in healthcare. It outlines the facts patients need and the level of involvement they require to make informed decisions, and emphasises the practical aspects of how practitioners can best explain risk. The first section of the book concentrates on defining risk and the factors influencing individuals as they make decisions about risk, and the latter part focuses on how clinical teams make decisions about organisational matters and the working environment. All health professionals, including doctors, nurses and managers throughout primary and secondary care will find it an essential reference.

Caring for elders outside of institutions is the fastest growing sector of US health care. Building on their research study at the Park Ridge Center, editors Holstein and Mitzen, together with a team of experts, examine the complexities involved in developing an ethics for community-based long-term care. They also challenge policymakers to make home care a more viable option for older people in need. Chapters address many of the ethical and practical problems that arise in the care of older people with physical and mental disabilities--including how to allocate scarce funds, how to keep good caregivers, how to balance concerns of autonomy, risk and safety, and worker stress. The volume is an excellent resource for practitioners, policymakers, and students.

"E-Health Care Information Systems" is a comprehensive collection written by leading experts from a range of disciplines including medicine, health sciences, engineering, business information systems, general science, and computing technology. This easily followed text provides a theoretical framework with sound methodological approaches and is filled with numerous case examples. Topics include e-health records, e-public information systems, e-network and surveys, general and specific applications of e-health such as e-rehabilitation, e-medicine, e-homecare, e-diagnosis support systems, and e-health intelligence. "E-Health Care Information Systems" also covers strategies in e-health care technology management, e-security issues, and the impacts of e-technologies. In addition, this book reviews new and emerging technologies such as mobile health, virtual reality and nanotechnology, and harnessing the power of e-technologies for real-world applications.

"Successful Supervision in Health Care Practice: Promoting Professional Development" Provides answers about how to implement supervision successfully and how to survive as a supervisor. It also provides guidance about the relationship between supervision and clinical governance. There is a strong theoretical and research base throughout the book that offers an approach to learning in practice. This book raises interesting questions about the nature and purpose of supervision for practitioners. The reflective accounts are written by novice and experienced supervisors from a variety of health and social care professions. They provide hope and encouragement to practitioners whilst offering scenarios for discussion and role-play in classroom settings.

Key features:
Outlines strategies to improve health care provision through supervision.
Provides a research based model for effective supervision and how to implement it.
Details guidelines on preparing practitioners for their role as supervisors.
Emphasises the importance of continuing professional development of students and staff.
Equally applicable within a variety of health and social care professions.
Includes reflective case studies for discussion and role-play.

Practitioners who are receiving and providing supervision, irrespective of their career stage, will find the text and case studies essential reading. Educators will find this book contains a wealth of ideas and valuable material for designing courses for supervisors. Managers will be well informed of current thinking on supervision to enable effective policies to be designed and successfully implemented.

Does restructuring health care delivery improve patient care?

After Restructuring examines nine hospital systems as they go through the process of restructuring and reports on the most effective strategies and practices for making organizational change within hospitals and other health care organizations.

The practical strategies presented in this much-needed book are based on solid qualitative research, case study methodology, and organizational theory. After Restructuring shows what actually happens in health care institutions that have restructured their clinical operations and offers valuable information on how to strategically plan and manage the effects of change on patient care, nursing, and the culture of the organization.

In clear and accessible terms, the book introduces a framework for understanding organizational transformation and defines the principles that guide health care change agents through the five stages of changereadiness to change, awareness of the need to change, identification and selection of changes, implementation, and institutionalization of changes. To aid organizations currently undertakingor considering this challenging process, the book is filled with specific, illustrative examples from the real life case studies.

The book is based on an extensive study conducted by a team of health services researchers led by Thomas Rundall, director of the Center for Health Management Studies at the University of California, Berkeley. The study surveyed nine hospital systems in urban, rural, and suburban regions that received Robert Wood Johnson Foundation grants and Pew Charitable Trust funding to restructure their patient processes. The standardsderived from the experiences of these hospitals lay the foundation for important best practices guidelines.
At the very heart of the authors transformational process is the introduction of the innovative concept bounding of empowerment--the strategy of focusing the work of empowered employees on activities that improve organizational performance. The authors explain how implementing this successful strategy can raise a hospitals overall level of effectiveness. The book also identifies specific strategies used by staff members to transform a hospitals hierarchical culture to become a cohesive and effective group culture. In addition, the book reveals how to implement the appropriate organizational changes that will address the unique needs of an individual hospital or health care institution.

Improving Patient Care Through Effective Managed Change

Is your health care organization undertakingor consideringrestructuring?
This book puts you on the front lines as it examines nine hospital systems as they attempt to redesign operations, reduce costs, and enhance patient care. Step by step, After Restructuring maps the best strategies used by these health care executives as they successfully restructured their institutions. After Restructuring shows how you can apply these same winning principles to successfully transform your institution.

"An in-depth treatment of organizational change in hospitals. After Restructuring provides a mother lode of insights and lessons that will be mined for years. A must read for all those committed to improving hospital performance in a radically changing health care system."--Stephen M. Shortell, Blue Cross of California DistinguishedProfessor of Health Policy and Management, professor of Organization Behavior, School of Public Health, University of California, Berkeley

"Unusual in its sensitivity to clinical and managerial agendas, this book demonstrates how hospital re-engineering principles can empower caregivers to improve hospital performance. Anyone hoping to change hospitals, or expecting to be affected by hospital changes, should read this book."Linda H. Aiken, director, Center for Health Services and Policy Research, University of Pennsylvania

"I would recommend this pathbreaking book to any health care executive, manager, physician, nurse, and anyone who is working to improve the performance of health care organizations."Mary A. Pittman, president, Health Research and Educational Trust

Despite more than a decade of change, the U.S. health care delivery system is still in the early stages of its transformation into a truly effective, cost efficient and compassionate system. In Healthcare.com: RX for Reform, Dr. David Friend, trained in both medicine and business, delineates the symptoms of our ailing healthcare system and offers a vision for the future.

Even with the enormous turmoil our health care system has undergone - from the proliferation managed care to the closing of hospitals - large numbers of people continue to receive sub-optimal care. The author discusses several symptoms including:
· increasing costs
· uncertain quality of care
· eroding trust in health care vendors
· increasing prospect of shareholder liability
· declining access to providers
· unclear impact on employee productivity

It is time to discard the old, traditional way of thinking about healthcare and take a fresh look at its issues and challenges. To tackle these challenges we must strike a balance between the seemingly dissimilar disciplines of economics, medicine, technology, and politics. Dr. Friend proposes that we tear down the brick and mortar delivery model and replace it with a Virtual Health Care System.

This new model changes the roles of everyone involved in the healthcare system, from the patient to the healthcare provider. It utilizes technology to redesign health care so that it can be delivered with higher quality and greater efficiency. Healthcare.com: RX for Reform examines the actions necessary for the evolution of our current system into a Virtual Health Care System.

Features

How serious is medical care inflation in the United States? For many years, price indexes for medical care have outstripped the overall rate of inflation. For example, between 1986 and 1996, the medical care component of the Consumer Price Index (CPI) rose 6.5 percent per year, roughly exceeding the annual increase in the overall CPI during this period by 75 percent. Many economists, however, believe that economic statistics on medical care do not accurately measure medical care price changes because it is especially difficult to construct accurate price indexes for medical markets. Some very recent research, reported in this volume, suggests that --contrary to the usual presumption of runaway medical inflation --prices for at least some medical care interventions are not rising rapidly and may even be falling. Understanding medical care inflation is important for policy issues such as medical care cost containment. Medical care price indexes also affect other economic statistics on medical care, including national accounts and the national health accounts. Understanding economic trends in the medical care sector is vitally dependent on accurate medical care price measures. This volume, the result of a conference cosponsored by the Brookings Institution and the American Enterprise Institute, brings together state-of-the-art methodological and empirical work on the measurement of medical outcomes and prices. It will be a useful tool for anyone concerned about medical inflation, medical outcomes, the quality of medical treatments, and public policy toward medical cost containment.

This book discusses current health care challenges and new strategies for innovative solutions in this area from an interdisciplinary perspective of health care management, business economics, and medicine. It presents the idea of a "boundaryless hospital", a conceptual model of a patient-centric, value-based health network that overcomes typical sectorial, organizational, and geographical boundaries and offers greater efficiency and better quality outcomes for patients. Effective health care for a growing and aging population is a major challenge for economies all over the world. New breakthroughs in medical technology and pharmaceuticals as well as digitization provide scope for more efficiency and for a better quality of health care. Novel organization forms and management concepts are key for coping with the increasing cost pressure observed in most health care systems. The contributions in this volume present innovative strategies for developing and implementing the concept of a boundaryless hospital. They highlight experiences from various countries and with different treatments. The book project was initiated and carried out by the Center for Advanced Studies in Management (CASiM), the interdisciplinary research center of HHL Leipzig Graduate School of Management for business administration in the 21st century.