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.

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.

"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.

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

This is a practical book for health and IT professionals who need to ensure that patient safety is prioritized in the design and implementation of clinical information technology. Healthcare professionals are increasingly reliant on information technology to deliver care and inform their clinical decision making. Health IT provides enormous benefits in efficiency, communication and decision making. However a number of high-profile UK and US studies have concluded that when Health IT is poorly designed or sub-optimally implemented then patient safety can be compromised. Manufacturers and healthcare organizations are increasingly required to demonstrate that their Health IT solutions are proactively assured. Surprisingly the majority of systems are not subject to regulation so there is little in the way of practical guidance as to how risk management can be achieved. The book fills that gap. The author, a doctor and IT professional, harnesses his two decades of experience to characterize the hazards that health technology can introduce. Risk can never be eliminated but by drawing on lessons from other safety-critical industries the book systematically sets out how clinical risk can be strategically controlled. The book proposes the employment of a Safety Case to articulate and justify residual risk so that not only is risk proactively managed but it is seen to be managed. These simple techniques drive product quality and allow a technology's benefits to be realized without compromising patient safety.

Offers an account of economic concepts relevant to the nursing profession. The aims of the book are to explain the economic theory underlying health care policy in the National Health Service with particular reference to nursing, and to examine the economic techniques which may be used to improve the understanding of efficiency and cost-effectivenes in the nursing profession.

This book is vital for health service managers and clinicians, in both purchaser and provider organizations, in community and hospital settings. It helps the reader understand the principles and purposes of casemix and provides practical examples of using casemix groupings to manage services better. Its lessons are not just for acute services, but provide a way of understanding the complete spectrum of services required for a wide range of conditions, from individuals at risk to those with irreversible and progressive disease. The book explains why casemix groups are useful and the reasons for grouping and analysing patient records. It focuses on the difference between groupings of patients with conditions, and groupings of intervention episodes. Using both enables better identification of the services required to meet the needs of the population, and better communication between purchasers and providers. It has potential for managing the whole healthcare system from a population based perspective.

This text is part of a practical tool-kit designed to help managers take control of their budgets. It should enable managers to understand the reports from management accounts and to know what to expect or demand from them. It has been exclusively developed to suit the specific needs of the NHS.

Managed care organizations are paving the way to the future of health care delivery in the United States and countries around the world. As managed care systems evolve, a major concern is quality. Managed Care Quality: A Practical Guide is a collection of applications and experiences gathered from practicing health professionals in the field of managed care. This first "how to" guide was written to help managed care organizations meet the common objective of ensuring the best quality of services and care. Managed Care Quality: A Practical Guide presents successive steps in implementing quality in health care organizations. It introduces the methods, skills, and practices involved in quality health care programs and offers solutions to problems typically encountered in managed care.

Analysing Health Care Organizations seeks to link the world of health policy and management with the academic field of organization studies in a novel and additive way. It outlines the main developments in UK health care management apparent over the last thirty years and explores how they might be (re)seen with the application of some important organizational theories and perspectives. This book draws out contemporary and enduring themes from current literature on health care organization and considers them from a range of theoretical perspectives. Drawing on robust areas of research and some key academics who contribute to work in this field, it is a book relevant both to experts in the field and to those seeking to develop an understanding of health care organization from a theoretical perspective. Analysing Health Care Organizations provides a state of the art introduction foundation for subsequent works that will extend its content; providing a broad introductory overview of this theoretical terrain and setting the scene for further research.

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.

This second edition reviews recent reforms and the likely impact of future developments in management and competition in the NHS. In particular, it reflects the growing importance of primary care and the continuing debates about health care rationing. It concentrates on the realities and how they can be interpreted to help strategists, managers, clinicians, students and those supplying the NHS understand the mechanism of efficient health care delivery.

"Depression ist out, Burnout ist in! Depression ist etwas fur Verlierer und Versager. Burnout hingegen haben Gewinner-Typen!" Diese Sichtweise ein und derselben Erkrankung hat sich schleichend in unseren Koepfen verankert, seit Burnout in der ersten Dekade der 2000er Jahre zur neuen Modediagnose wurde. Dieses Buch soll den Blick auf diese Erkrankung weiten und seinen Teil dazu beitragen, sie endlich aus der Ecke des Schweigens heraus zu holen. Denn sowohl die Ursachen als auch die Pravention von Burnout sind zu vielschichtig, um sie ausschliesslich der Psyche zuzuschreiben. Die Autoren zeigen auf, welchen Einfluss der Arbeitsplatz auf die Entstehung von Burnout hat und erlautern zudem die physische Komponente von Erschoepfungssyndromen. Es wird anschaulich zur Pravention informiert, Expertenwissen aus der Praxis vermittelt und Inspirationen fur den Alltag gegeben. Die Leser werden zu aktiven Verhaltensanderungen motiviert und es wird Mut gemacht, sich eine gesunde Lebensfuhrung zu erlauben. Denn es ist hoechste Zeit fur einen Paradigmenwechsel in der allgemeinen Wahrnehmung dieser leider so haufigen Diagnose.

The Juran Prescription surveys the breadth of knowledge and skills and identifies the practical steps needed if clinicians are to build quality programs that are tailored to their individual organizations. Based on the highly effective management techniques of renowned Dr. Joseph Juran, this book outlines management strategies and techniques that transform health care organizations. The author examines the principle at the heart of Juran's teachings - total quality management - as reflected in such impressive management innovations as outcomes measurement, guidelines for practice, reengineering, and patient-focused care. The Juran Prescription is a comprehensive primer written for physicians, administrators, managers, and other health care personnel who play a leadership role in today's highly complex and competitive environment.

Rationalization is concerned with making the most effective use of the resources available. In many places where this process is taking place it is plagued with public opposition and misunderstanding. Hitherto, rationalization in the acute care sector has primarily been concerned with closing sites, closing beds, moving beds between services, and moving beds from one site to another. This book discusses the need for rationalization in the context of health service reforms and future strategy. It considers recent changes in the health service, the case for rationalization, health care needs, the role of public relations, the future of the acute care hospital, site and facilities appraisal, and the costs of rationalization. The text is essential reading for managers and clinicians involved in acute care services, non-executive members of boards and trusts, and students of health services management.

This study examines management systems and their appropriateness to the National Health Service. The text considers the role of clinicians in management, recommending increased involvement by clinicians, and arguing that they must take on a greater management role in the reformed health service. The author suggests that conultants are best placed to manage the NHS efficiently and cost-effectively. In a system where non-clinical staff have come to dominate NHS management, and where purchasers determine what services are to be provided and the Patient's Charter defines the parameters of practice, doctors have genuine reasons to be hostile to the idea of involvement in hospital management. However, the author of this book warns of the danger to the health service and to patient care if consultants are sidelined. He considers management systems and the most suitable roles of clinicians in practice. In proposing models for change, he aims to transform the professional lives of clinicians.

This text addresses the key issue of informal payments, or 'red packets', in the Chinese Healthcare system. It considers how transactions take place at the clinical level as well as their regulation. Analysing the practice from the perspectives of institutions and power structure, it examines how institutional changes in the pre-reform and reform era have changed the power structure between medical professions, patients and the Party-state, and how these changes have given rise and perpetuate the practice. Drawing from qualitative data from interviews of medical professionals, the author recognises the medical profession as a major player in the health care system and presents their perception of the practice as the taker of 'red packets' and their interactions with the patient and the state surrounding the illegal practice in an authoritarian power structure. The books considers the institutional reasons that motivate doctors to take, patients to give, and the government to "tolerate" red packets, arguing that the bureaucratization of the medical profession, society of acquaintances and shortage of quality of medical services jointly create an institutional setting that has given rise to these informal payments. Contributing to a rounded understanding of the problems of healthcare reform in China, this book is a key read for all scholars interested in the issue of informal payments and healthcare politics in transition economies.

The need for a more conscious, focused and proactive approach to the management of health-care organizations has increased substantially. One consequence of this is that health-care managers are having to look at managerial approaches and techniques that previously were the province of the private sector. Prominent among those is the whole area of marketing. This work takes a broad approach to the marketing process, highlighting some of the challenges that health-care managers and medical professionals are having to face. Having done this, the authors move on to examine some of the characteristics of good and bad management practice. It is against this background that, in subsequent chapters, they turn their attention to the question of marketing and how it might best contribute to the management of organizations throughout the health sector. Each chapter includes questions and checklists offering scope for applying marketing principles to primary and secondary health-care organizations of all types, sizes and specialities.

In the face of the relentless rise in health costs, many countries have had to set priorities so that maximum benefit can be made of unlimited funds. This book shares the experience of those which have taken a lead in this field, and draws on models being developed in Oregon, New Zealand, The Netherlands and Sweden as well as the UK. It discusses the strengths and weaknesses of each system from which healthcare planners and managers can draw their own conclusions and apply to the situation for which they are responsible.

Until now, no textbook on TQ has emerged that was written specifically for the healthcare industry. The Textbook of TQ in Healthcare is the first true text prepared by healthcare professionals for healthcare professionals. It provides a discussion of the tools, techniques and principles of TQ. Academic programs will find this text very useful for courses in TQ, quality management, general and strategic management and leadership.The Textbook is also an excellent reference for students and professionals in medicine, nursing, allied health services, pharmacy and healthcare administration.
The Textbook of TQ in Healthcare starts with an introduction and history of TQ and its movement from the manufacturing sector to the healthcare industry. Quality is then discussed as a major cornerstone of the healthcare delivery system. Principles, methods for implementation and the tools for assessing TQ progress are described. The Textbook concludes with a section on comparative analysis of TQ with other management philosophies. Also presented are a case study of a major healthcare facility that has actually implemented TQ and an excellent collection of articles that further expand the understanding of TQ.

Approved by the Dietary Managers Association for 9 CEUs through September 1998 Here is a useful guide that helps both administrators and food service workers understand the daily functions of their dietary departments. Dietetic Service Operation Handbook enhances extended caregivers'knowledge of basic food service and clinical dietetics operations and serves as a functional tool they can use to initiate effective organization of dietetic services. It explains proper techniques and tips for everything from how to plan a menu and care for equipment to special adaptive eating devices and modifying texture for swallowing disorders. Packed with general and specific guidelines, this book also teaches food service employees how to allocate time more wisely, making them effective members of the interdisciplinary medical team--and saving their facility time and money as well. Administrators who wish to understand the functions of their dietary department so they can communicate more effectively with its staff will find this book a most useful resource, full of meaningful interpretations of routine tasks found in the daily operation of a food service.The author, registered with the American Dietetic Association, has prioritized the topics in the book to assist the systematic organization of any dietary department. Chapters cover both administrative and clinical topics, including food purchasing and production, the policy and procedure manual, quality assurance, current trends in geriatric nutrition, the effects of medicine on diet, enteral feeding, and documentation of the medical record. Dietetic Service Operation Handbook includes a wide variety of standardized recipes for the pureed diet, a resource list, handy calculations, and many useful forms for record-keeping which are compatible with OBRA laws. Beginning dietitians and dietary managers will find this book to be an extremely helpful and practical guide in their day-to-day work. Beginning or expert administrators and nursing directors will discover it improves their understanding of and communication with their food service operations.

This book takes the readers step by step through the key skills and knowledge, to enable them to take control of their budget. It is helpful for the reader to learn how to find out the rules governing their budget, why budgets overspend and underspend and how to make a bid for increased funding.