The response from the jewelry industry to a campaign for ethically sourced gold as a case study in the power of business in global environmental politics. Gold mining can be a dirty business. It creates immense amounts of toxic materials that are difficult to dispose of. Mines are often developed without community consent, and working conditions for miners can be poor. Income from gold has funded wars. And consumers buy wedding rings and gold chains not knowing about any of this. In Dirty Gold, Michael Bloomfield shows what happened when Earthworks, a small Washington-based NGO, launched a campaign for ethically sourced gold in the consumer jewelry market, targeting Tiffany and other major firms. The unfolding of the campaign and its effect on the jewelry industry offer a lesson in the growing influence of business in global environmental politics. Earthworks planned a "shame" campaign, aimed at the companies' brands and reputations, betting that firms like Tiffany would not want to be associated with pollution, violence, and exploitation. As it happened, Tiffany contacted Earthworks before they could launch the campaign; the company was already looking for partners in finding ethically sourced gold. Bloomfield examines the responses of three companies to "No Dirty Gold" activism: Tiffany, Wal-Mart, and Brilliant Earth, a small company selling ethical jewelry. He finds they offer a case study in how firms respond to activist pressure and what happens when businesses participate in such private governance schemes as the "Golden Rules" and the "Conflict-Free Gold Standard." Taking a firm-level view, Bloomfield examines the different opportunities for and constraints on corporate political mobilization within the industry.

If the current economic malaise accomplishes nothing else, it should help awaken us all to the realization that our country has been on a path of self-destructive behavior for several decades--a reversal of the progressive path that had made major gains in economic and political equality for a large majority of the U.S. population starting in the 1870s. It is John McDermott's purpose in this ambitious book to explain why that reversal happened, how society has changed in dramatic ways since the 1960s, and what we can do to reverse this downward spiral.

In Part 1 he endeavors to lay out the overall narrative of change from the 1960s to the present, emphasizing how a novel social structure came to be developed around corporate America to form what he calls "corporate society." Part 2 analyzes what the nature of this corporate society is, how it is a special type of "fabricated" structure, and why it came to dominate society generally, eventually including the government and university systems, which themselves became increasingly corporatized. The aim of Part 3 is to outline a path of reform that can, if all its parts can be integrated sufficiently to be effective, put us on the path to restarting the progressive movement.

Bureaucracy has long been a cornerstone of advanced industrial societies, and a defining feature of modernity. At the same time, many commentators from all quarters argue that it is on the wane in this post-this or that world; or that if it isn't, it should be dismantled to free up organizations, enterprise, and innovation. But do we live in a more or less bureaucratic world? Do contemporary forms and means of communication undermine or modify bureaucracy, or does technology create new 'iron cages' and forms of control? If bureaucratic models of organization are abandoned, do we run risks of organizational failure and inequity? Are there certain moral, professional, and social values associated with bureaucratic models? This book explores these issues in different organizational contexts - public administration, the National Health Service, the modern firm and corporation - and offers new insights into enduring questions. It will be an invaluable resource for academics, researchers, and students in organization studies, management, public administration, and sociology. The volume will also appeal to managers, planners, and policy makers who deal with these challenges.

Health care reform is within our reach. According to George Halvorson, CEO of the nation's largest private health care plan, only by improving the intent, quality, and reach of services will we achieve a health system that is economically feasible into the future.

This year, Americans will spend 2.5 trillion for health services that are poorly coordinated, inconsistent, and most typically focused on the belated care of chronic conditions. What we have to show for that expenditure is a nation that continues to become more obese, less healthy, and more depressed.

In Health Care Will Not Reform Itself, Kaiser Permanente CEO George Halvorson proves beyond a doubt that the tragically inconsistent care that currently defines the state of U.S. health services is irresponsible, irrational, but more importantly, fixable. With detail that might shock you, he shows why the nonsystem we now use is failing. Then, applying the same sensible leadership that makes Kaiser the most progressive health care organization in the world, he answers President Obama s mandate for reform with a profound incentive-based, system-supported, goal-focused, care-improvement plan.

Halvorson draws from respected studies, including his own, and the examples of successful systems across the world to show that while good health care is expensive, it is nowhere near as costly as bad health care. To immediately curb care costs and bring us in line with President Obama's projected parameters, he recommends that we:

• Take a preventive approach to the chronic conditions that account for the lion s share of medical costs
• Coordinate patient care through a full commitment to information technology
• Increase the pool of contributors by mandating universal insurance
• Rearrange priorities by making health maintenance profitable
• Convene a national committee to "figure out the right thing" and "make it easy to do"

While this book offers sage advice to policy makers, it is also written to educate the 260 million stakeholders and invite their participation in the debate that is now shaping. What makes this plan so easy to understand and so compelling is that it never strays from a profound truth: that the best health system is one that actually focuses on good health for everyone.

All royalties from the sale of this book go to Oakland Community Voices: Healthcare for the Underserved

Improving Medication Use and Outcomes with Clinical Decision Support is the result of a ground-breaking collaboration by dozens of individuals and organizations, with diverse perspectives and competencies. Edited by Jerome Osheroff, MD, the book is co-published by HIMSS, the Scottsdale Institute, AMIA, ISMP, ASHP, and AMDIS. The Guide is designed to help clinical decision support implementers improve medication use and associated outcomes in their organizations by providing practical recommendations for successfully implementing CDS focused on these targets. Chapters include detailed guidance on key areas in an effective CDS-medication management program such as: Optimizing governance structures and management processes Defining outcome improvement opportunities and baselines Setting up interventions in key clinical information systems and for specific targets Deploying CDS interventions to optimize acceptance and value Measuring results and refining the program Approaching CDS knowledge management systematically

America may be one of the wealthiest countries in the world, but its citizens rank near the bottom in health status. Americans have lower life expectancy, more infant mortalities and higher adolescent death rates than most other advanced industrial nations-and even some developing countries. Though Americans are famous for tolerating great inequality in wealth, the gross inequities in the health system are less well recognized. In Healthy, Wealthy and Fair, a distinguished group of health policy experts chart the stark disparities in health and wealth in the United States. The authors explain how the inequities arise, why they persist, and what makes them worse. Growing income inequality, high poverty rates, and inadequate health care coverage: all three trends help account for the U.S.'s health troubles. The corrosive effects of market ideology and government stalemate, the contributors argue, have also proved a powerful obstacle to effective and more egalitarian solutions. A clarion call for a populist uprising to end the stalemate over health reform, Healthy, Wealthy, and Fair outlines concrete policy proposals for reform-tapping bold new ideas as well as incremental changes to existing programs. This important work will be indispensable to all those who care about our people's health, inequality, and American democracy.

Organizations are being urged to experiment with new structures and processes. A 'process perspective' on organizing is emerging as a major challenge to 'functional' principles of organizing established during the last century. Business process reengineering is one exemplar of process thinking that has received great attention amongst organizational theorists and practitioners. This in-depth account of business process reengineering within a major NHS hospital is an important contribution to the very limited stock of empirical knowledge about new organizational forms, especially in the public sector. The book combines empirical data gathered through an intensive, comparative case study method with strategic choice and neo-institutional theories to analyse the changing context of public organizations, importation of models of organizing from private to public organizations, and dynamics of public sector transformation. The outcomes of the change programme add to our more general organizational knowledge about (a) the impact of corporate change programmes, particularly in professionalized and public sector settings, (b) impediments and enablers of lateral organizing structures and processes, and (c) contradictions within the New Public Management between functional and process principles for organizing.

The transformation of Britain's energy policy in the last two decades has been more radical than any such change in developed economies. Since 1979 the great state energy monopolies created after the Second World War have been privatised and made subject to competition. Images of Arthur Scargill and the miners' strike of the 1980s remain vivid, but what effect has the new market philosophy had on Britain's energy industries? Since 1979 the National Coal Board, British Gas, and the Central Electricity Generating Board have all been broken up. Energy trading, electricity pools, auctions, and futures markets first developed, but they failed to solve the old energy policy problems of security of supply and network integrity, and the new ones of the environment and reliance on gas. The government introduced a new regulatory regime as a temporary necessity but regulation did not wither away, rather it grew to be more pervasive. Changing the ownership of the industries did not reduce the government's involvement, it simply changed its form. The 1980s and 1990s were years of energy surpluses and low fossil-fuel prices. There was little need to invest, and much of the investment in the so-called dash for gas was artificially stimulated. The new owners sweated the assets, and engaged in major financial engineering. Takeovers consolidated the industry into a smaller number of dominant firms. As investment priorities became more urgent, with the environmental pressures of climate change and the gradual switch to imported gas, the market philosophy was found wanting. Energy policy could not rely solely on the market. And it is the government which finds itself responsible for resolving the core issues of energy policy. Helm's book tells this story. It is a major study of the new market approach to energy policy in Britain since 1979. It describes the miners' strike, the privatisations of the gas, electricity, nuclear generation, and coal industries, and looks at events such as the dash for gas, regulatory failures in setting monopoly prices, and the takeovers and the consolidations of the late 1990s. Helm sets out the achievements of the new market philosophy, but also analyses why it has ultimately failed to turn energy industries into normal commodity businesses. The revised paperback edition includes a new chapter on the White Paper on a low-carbon economy and updated discussions on nuclear power, to incorporate the 2003 Nuclear White Paper, price reviews, and emissions trading.

Medical practice and research are inconceivable today without electronic computing and communication tools. Digital machines do many tasks orders-of-magnitude better, faster and more accurately than humans. Still, there are functions critical to the healthcare endeavor that people do much better than machines, things like: understanding and using natural language; perceiving what is unexpressed; taking into account values, culture, ethics, and human relationships; touching and healing. For the foreseeable future, the "smartest" computers will be no match for human beings when it comes to performing these most anthropic functions. American healthcare is at a critical juncture. Providers and patients are increasingly frustrated by degradation of the human relationships that lie at the core of the medical practice. Technologies, such as the computerized medical record, get much of the blame for intrusion into the patient-provider relationship. However, it is not technology itself that is to blame. The fault lies with how systems are conceived, designed, and deployed. This book analyzes how to organize the work of healthcare in a way that uses machines to do what they do best, thereby freeing humans to do what we do best. Smart use of electronic technology is crucial to the success of any bid to fulfill the Institute for Healthcare Improvement's triple aim to make healthcare more effective, efficient, and humane.

This book gives the reader an inside look at creating a new healthcare service using practical examples and scenarios one would face if doing it themselves. This workbook is a follow-up to the recently published, Lean Design in Healthcare and offers a tactical version of the principles provided in the book. It parses the dialogue out into detailed reasons for the Lean Design in Healthcare's position and principles. This workbook contains examples and many exercises for the reader to complete to begin their own innovation journey. Lean Design in Healthcare chronicles the journey of a fictitious healthcare delivery organization using the Simpler Design System principles based on Lean methodologies. While the characters and actual story is fictitious, it is based on the journey many healthcare systems and clients have taken, the issues they have faced, and the successes and failures they've had. This workbook takes the initial story further and includes leadership quotes and best practices to support the dialogue introduced in the first book. Exercises will be custom designed to match the story flow and provides practical information that readers can immediately apply in their work. Each chapter will start with an introduction and contain 10 exercises per chapter. Tools include those gleaned from actual application of Lean Product Development, Agile, Design for Six Sigma, and Design Thinking Principles.

Leading Medicaid Managed Care Plans examines leadership actions necessary to successfully operate a Medicaid managed care plan with emphasis on the relationship with the state Medicaid agency the health plan is contracted with. With appropriate operational and governance oversight, and with solid mutually respectful relationships with the state agency, Medicaid health plans are more likely to sustain success and prosperity for the long term. The approach of Leading Medicaid Managed Care Plans builds on key infrastructure elements that need to be in place when contracting with a state agency, and for overall success of the organization. It takes a pragmatic and methodical approach, interspersed with real-life examples of what to do for success and what actions to avoid that frequently lead to failure. This approach is different from most managed care books (Medicaid or otherwise) as those mostly focus on the process of the business (such as details around claims payment, or provider contracting) and ignore the role of the state Medicaid agency and its importance in retaining the contractual relationship. This book differs also on its emphasis on organizational foundational elements and strategic leadership skills necessary to sustain success. The author has years of experience in turning around failing Medicaid managed care plans and observing what they all had in common that contributed to those failures. One common feature was the deterioration of the relationship with the state Medicaid agency they were contracted with, and how close they all came to losing their multi-million dollar businesses. The purpose of this book is to educate and inspire managed care executives and senior leaders who operate Medicaid health plans and to help them understand what elements are needed for successful health plans and a sustainable relationship with the people directing the state Medicaid agency.

This book analyses the effectiveness of district administration from critical management perspective. Using classical organizational theory and leadership competency framework, the authors conducted a comparative study of two exemplary districts with distinctive traits in India a rural district in the developed state of Maharashtra and an urban district from the underdeveloped state of Madhya Pradesh. The book delves into the dynamics of district administration by breaking down the processes further and mapping the role of the district magistrates on the UNDP competency framework. Given the changing scope and challenges of public service, this comparative analysis of the two districts would provide insights into district administration and would be of significant relevance to administrators and management professionals across the globe in assessing their effectiveness. The book provides an eclectic framework for public administration from an overall sustainability perspective

This book intends to theoretically conceptualize and empirically investigate upcoming and established practices of community-based initiatives in various countries in which both citizens and governments join efforts and capacities to solve wicked issues. It aims to include and compare cases from various countries, departing from the notion that community-based initiatives take place in an institutional context of governmental structures, rules, procedures, regulations, and routines. This leads to government involvement in these initiatives and sharing the public space. Furthermore, the editors take into account what kind of leadership roles, knowledge, and resources are present and how they evolve in this collaborative or coordinative effort, which in turn can enhance the capacities of community-based initiatives. This book joins excellent researchers from renowned universities all over the world, aiming for a balance between upcoming scholars and renowned scholars in the field of community-based initiatives and governance capacity. Contributors were carefully selected on the basis of their experience in the field of community-based initiatives, citizens' engagement and governance capacity approaches. Aimed at researchers and academics, this volume will be of interest to those in the fields of business, economics, public administration, political science, social enterprise, sociology and third sector studies.

It takes 17 years on average to bring new medical treatments ideas into evidence-based clinical practice. The growing replicability crisis in science further delays these "new miracles." Blockchain can improve science and accelerate medical research while bringing a new layer of trust to healthcare. This book is about science, its value to medicine, and how we can use blockchain to improve the quality and impact of both. The book looks at science and medicine from an insider's perspective and describes the processes, successes, shortcomings and opportunities in an accessible way for a broad audience. It weaves this a non-technical look at the emerging world of blockchain technology; what it is, where it is useful, and how it can improve science and medicine. It lays out a roadmap for this application to transform how we develop knowledge about health and medicine to improve our lives. In the first part, Blockchain isn't Tech, the authors look at blockchain/distributed ledger technology along with critical trade-offs and current explorations of its utility. They give an overview of use cases for the technology across industries, including finance, manufacturing and healthcare, with interviews and insights from leaders across government, academia, and tech/health industry both big and start-up. In the second part, Science is Easy, the authors look at science as a process and how this drives advancement in medicine. They shed a light on some of science's shortcomings, including the reproducibility crisis and problems with misaligned incentives (i.e. publish or perish). They apply a breakdown of critical components to the functional steps in the scientific process and outline how the open science movement is looking to improve these, while highlighting the limit of these fixes with current technology, incentives and structure of science. In the third part, DAO of Science, the authors look at how blockchain applied to open science can impact medical research. They examine how this distributed approach can provide better quality science, value-based research and faster medical miracles. Finally, they provide a vision of the future of distributed medical research and give a roadmap of steps to get there.

In this book, Phelps and Parente explore the US health care system and set out the case for its reform. They trace the foundations of today's system, and show how distortions in the incentives facing participants in the health care market could be corrected in order to achieve lower costs, a higher quality of care, a higher level of patient safety, and a more efficient allocation of health care resources. Phelps and Parente propose novel yet economically robust changes to US tax law affecting health insurance coverage and related issues. They also discuss a series of specific improvements to Medicare and Medicaid, and assess potential innovations that affect all of health care, including chronic disease management, fraud and abuse detection, information technology, and other key issues. The Economics of US Health Care Policy will be illuminating reading for anyone with an interest in health policy, and will be a valuable supplementary text for courses in health economics and health policy, including for students without advanced training in economics.

This third edition of HIMSS' award-winning, bestseller explores how clinicians, patients, and health IT stakeholders are collaborating to support high-value care through health IT. Medical Informatics: An Executive Primer continues to explore information technologies applied in hospital settings, at the physician's office and in patients' homes to provide high-value patient care. Developed for healthcare executives, the book looks at how clinicians, patients and health IT stakeholders are collaborating on a 'team-based,' IT-enabled approach to healthcare. The book's authors offer provider success stories on utilizing health IT-such as EHRs, clinical decision support, telehealth and electronic quality measure reporting to transform healthcare, while addressing health IT usability, interoperability, privacy and security concerns and meeting federal regulations. New to this edition are chapters focused on how health IT innovations, mobile technologies and personal digital tools are demonstrating the value of health IT. Medical Informatics also explores successful EHR implementations by organizations recognized with the HIMSS Nicholas E. Davies Award of Excellence, through case studies focused on patient engagement, population management, clinical and business intelligence, health information exchange and patient readmission prevention.

An in-depth overview of the emerging concept; Mobile Health (mHealth), mHealth Multidisciplinary Verticals links applications and technologies to key market and vendor players. It also highlights interdependencies and synergies between various stakeholders which drive the research forces behind mHealth. The book explores the trends and directions where this vertical market is headed. Divided into nine sections, the book covers a number of multidisciplinary verticals within the field of mHealth such as: Preventive and curative medicine Consumer and patient-centric approaches Psychological, behavioral, and mental verticals Social perspectives Education, adoption, and acceptance Aged care and the aging population Regional, geographical, and public-health perspectives Technology implications Cloud applications The book collates emerging and diverse mHealth applications into a single resource. The result of extensive research, the book is a collaborative effort between experts from more than 20 countries, who have been carefully reviewed and selected by the team of reviewers. It takes a multidisciplinary approach to health informatics and provides a roadmap to current and future directions of mHealth.

From small law offices to federal agencies, all entities within the justice system are governed by complicated economic factors and face daily financial decision-making. A complement to Strategic Finance for Criminal Justice Organizations, this volume considers the justice system from a variety of economic and financial perspectives and introduces quantitative methods designed to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of organizations in both the non-profit and for-profit sectors. Using only a minimum of theory, Economic and Financial Analysis for Criminal Justice Organizations demonstrates how to make decisions in the justice system using multiple financial and economic models. Designed for readers with little knowledge of advanced mathematics, quantitative analysis, or spreadsheets, the book presents examples using straightforward, step-by-step processes with Excel and Linux Calc spreadsheet software. A variety of different types of decisions are considered, ranging from municipal bond issuance and valuation necessary for public revenues, pension planning, capital investment, determining the best use of monies toward construction projects, and other resource planning, allocation, and forecasting issues. From municipalities and police departments to for-profit prisons and security firms, the quantitative methods presented are designed to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of all organizations in the justice domain.

The Allied Health Professions - Essential Guides series is unique in providing advice on management, leadership and development for those in the Allied Health Professions (AHP). This highly practical volume offers a wide range of assessment tools and techniques in such critical areas as management quality, organisational and management structure, benchmarking, capacity and demand management, care pathway design, activity analysis, report writing and presentation skills. The layout is conducive to easy comprehension; tables, figures and boxed text aid quick reference and everyday application, and many of the resources are also provided on a complimentary CD. With contributions from internationally renowned professionals Key tools and techniques in management and leadership of the allied health professions provides tools that will be vital to all allied health professionals interested in providing timely, efficient and cost-effective care for their patients. These will include AHP managers and aspiring managers, senior clinicians, extended scope practitioners, clinical specialists, AHP educators, researchers, staff and students. 'The NHS is facing the greatest period of challenge in its history. The key to success is leadership. Allied Health Professionals will be a central part of this leadership response. In this work, Robert and Fiona continue their series supporting Allied Health Professionals in that leadership journey. It is an important contribution to this critical effort.' From the Foreword by Jim Easton

In many countries, public sector institutions impose heavy burdens on economic life: heavy and arbitrary taxes retard investment, regulations enrich corrupt bureaucrats, state firms consume national wealth, and the most talented people turn to rent-seeking rather than productive activities. As a consequence of such predatory policies--described in this book as the grabbing hand of the state--entrepreneurship lingers and economies stagnate.

The authors of this collection of essays describe many of these pathologies of a grabbing hand government, and examine their consequences for growth. The essays share a common viewpoint that political control of economic life is central to the many government failures that we observe. Fortunately, a correct diagnosis suggests the cures, including the best strategies of fighting corruption, privatization of state firms, and institutional building in the former socialist economies. Depoliticization of economic life emerges as the crucial theme of the appropriate reforms. The book describes the experiences with the grabbing hand government and its reform in medieval Europe, developing countries, transition economies, as well as today's United States.

Insights in Global Health: A Compendium of Healthcare Facilities and Nonprofit Organizations is the most comprehensive index of critical information on healthcare facilities and nonprofits in 24 of the lowestincome countries as classified by the World Bank. Presented in an easily accessible format and organized in 24 country chapters, the compendium allows stakeholders to better identify where healthcare services are available and where additional resources are needed. Key Features: * Brief country overviews, key statistics, and country maps depicting the locations of healthcare facilities. * Curated lists of healthcare facilities as well as nonprofits, accompanied by brief descriptions and relevant medical specialties, for each country. * QR codes associated with each listing linking to a companion web platform, providing access to further information about the organizations as well as the ability to interact with the data in a customizable manner.

Process Redesign for Health Care Using Lean Thinking is a response to a simple, but hard to answer, question and is the result of the experiences of a working doctor who was also the chief safety and quality officer of an Australian teaching hospital. At this hospital, he observed that the Emergency Department was staff by talented, well-trained, and respected doctors and nurses. The facilities were modern, and the work load unexceptional, but the department was close to melt down. Bad things were happening to patients, everyone was blaming each other, lots of things had been tried but nothing was getting better and no one could explain why. The problem was not a lack of technical knowledge or expertise, the problem was that no one stood back and said, "what's the best way to move 200 or 300 patients a day through the complicated and varying, sequence of steps needed to sort out the many different problems that bring patients to our department?" These challenges are faced by hospitals and health services all over the world. There are difficulties with patient flow, congestion, queues, inefficient utilization of resources, problems engaging clinical staff in improvement programs, adverse incidents, and budget constraints. Lean thinking and value stream analysis gives hospitals and health services struggling with these issues the insights they need to help themselves. This book provides a method that systematically turns those insights into working programs of service and system redesign. The book is divided into two sections. The first section gives the background to the approach, and systematically works through the Process Redesign methodology, step-by-step. The second section is a series of case studies that show the methodology in action, what worked and what didn't work. The goal of any process redesign is simple: the right care, for the right person, at the right time, in the right place, and right the first time. This book helps the people who work in hospitals and health services realize these goals by working together.

The Paradox: Americans are not as healthy as people in dozens of comparable countries that spend 30 percent less on health care, and our medical marketplace overall is plagued by persistent problems of cost, quality, and access. Yet, the world's best individual health systems are located in the U.S.-each a unique result of visionary leadership and private initiative, not government-driven health reform. The Imperatives: Due to powerful new forces explained in this book, medical spending has stopped growing. Purchasers, payers, and patients are no longer willing or able to keep paying more. To stay in business and improve population health, providers and their business partners must eliminate the shameful waste generated by inefficient and ineffective production processes. The Solution: Simply repairing or repealing the Affordable Care Act will not get us where we want to go. The fundamental roadblock is a wasteful system, not uninsured Americans. Reform needs to be immediately redirected to creating the best health care system that 17 percent of GDP can buy. Money saved by taking the new path to reform can then be used to improve population health through access for all. Paradox and Imperatives in Health Care is the roadmap for getting there. Supplies updated perspectives on health care's problems and solutions Details the reasons why government-driven reform does not solve problems Provides a justification for regulatory relief tied to performance improvement Suggests specific new policies for a better approach to desired outcomes Presents content written expressly for busy executives and policy makers

Health Communication and Mass Media is a much-needed resource for those with a professional or academic interest in the field of health communication. The chapters engage and expand upon significant theories informing efforts at mediated health communication and demonstrate the practical utility of these theories in on-going or completed projects. They consider how to balance the ethical and efficacy demands of mediated health communication efforts, and discuss both traditional media and communication systems and new web-based and mobile media. The book's treatment is broad, reflecting the topical and methodological diversity in the field. It offers an integrated approach to communication theory and application. Readers will be able to appreciate the ways that theory shapes health communication applications and how those applications inform the further construction of theory. They will find practical examples of mediated health communication that can serve as models for their own efforts. While the book serves as an introduction to mediated health communication for students, professionals, and practitioners with limited experience, researchers and advanced practitioners will also appreciate the exemplars and theoretical insights offered by the chapter authors. This book will be of interest to anyone involved in health communication programs or more generally with communication and allied studies, as well as to those in the health professions and their related fields.

Healthcare IT is a complex and rapidly evolving field. Success in this arena requires the ability to create a vision, set a strategy, foster collaboration, develop a plan and execute flawlessly every day. This book provides a clear, concise roadmap for professionals who currently manage, direct or oversee healthcare IT. Through case studies and examples, the author includes highly relevant topics such as delivering and communicating HIT values, managing information security, and connectivity challenges, as well as organizational strategy, alignment and vision of HIT, risk management, performance management and process improvement using Lean methodologies.