Healthcare Delivery in the U.S.A.: An Introduction
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Features
- Contains information and data drawn from recent reports and statistics
- Addresses key issues in the healthcare industry, including the quality of care movement, the importance of information technology, financing reform, and payment incentives
- Examines specific areas of the global market including medical tourism and the driving forces behind the future of healthcare
Summary
Whether our healthcare system reached its current crisis by way of fragmentation and misaligned policy or by way of self-interest and shortsightedness, what matters now is that the system is so convoluted and complex that only those intimate with its complex ways can hope to unravel the tangle. Creative healthcare providers and business experts adept at problem solving stand ready to weigh in with viable solutions but first they must be ordained in the terminology and the layers of confusion that have become endemic to the system. Margaret F. Schulte has made her reputation explaining the U.S. healthcare maze to IT professionals, students, and others not savvy to the arcane structures that make up our current system. With clarity that defies the very complexity of the problem, Dr. Schulte distills the whole of the U.S. healthcare system into something comprehensible if not logical and consequently, remediable. In this brilliantly simple work, she—
- Examines the history of U.S. healthcare and details the maze of the current unforgiving system
- Explores the regulations that add more complexity than protection
- Discusses current and potential means of financing
- Looks at the contemporary movement towards quality and the solutions that technology can offer
The truth is that we are in a morass, and we need to invite fresh thinkers to the table, Healthcare Delivery in the USA: An Introduction will help those folks find their way to the table and once there, help them define new imperatives and goals that are all about the quality care we can no long afford to forego.
Table of Contents
History of the U.S. Healthcare Delivery System
Health Status: The Health of the Population
Components of the Healthcare Delivery System
Structure of Healthcare Delivery
Doctors in the Healthcare Delivery Structure
Workforce: Nurses and Others
The Legal and Regulatory Environme
Financing Healthcare
Quality
Public Health
Editorial Reviews
This brief but remarkable book is balanced in its consideration of the history and scope of health care in the US today … Although Schulte (Grand Valley State Univ.) avoids legislative recommendations, this work should have been required reading for every member of Congress and all lobbyists seeking to impose their own, more limited agendas before Congress took up the challenge … Everyone should read this book.
—D.R. Shanklin, University of Chicago, CHOICE, Vol. 47, No. 09
Margaret Schulte provides a concise introduction to the history, issues, terminology and structure of a very complex and often unwieldy industry – healthcare. This book would be helpful for those early in their careers or transitioning in from other industries to help improve quality and processes. I certainly wish I had this guide when I was starting in healthcare.
—Mark Graban, Shingo Prize-Winning Author of Lean Hospitals
Because traditional approaches to health reform aren’t working, the business of medical care obviously needs new thinking from skilled professionals who can approach it from fresh perspectives. Many creative problem solvers from other industries would surely relish the opportunity to bring their insights to health care, but first they need to understand the industry and to speak its special language. Dr. Margaret Schulte has written the perfect book to bridge the gap. Healthcare Delivery in the U.S.A. is the resource that outsiders need to join the conversation and start teaching the medical sector lessons it must learn from other industries. The more non-health professionals who read this book, the sooner we’ll see efficiency and effectiveness in medical care.
—Jeff Bauer, Ph.D., Management Consulting Partner and Director of the Futures Practice, Affiliated Computer Services Healthcare Solutions, Author of Paradox and Imperatives in Health Care
I wish a book like this had been available when I entered health care. In easy-to-understand terms, Dr. Schulte lays out the components of the healthcare system so those of us who enter can be oriented to the terms and to the various entities we will be encountering. As the level of complexity of the healthcare system continues to increase, books such as this can help us deconstruct the system into understandable components. As we know, in order to improve, we must first understand. Dr. Schulte helps us understand.
—Dean Bliss, Lean Improvement Specialist, Iowa Health System
Selling technology solutions to hospitals is challenging because it requires knowing what’s important to different people – patients, doctors, and employees – without any margin for error. Dr. Schulte’s book is 'Healthcare 101' for any sales professional striving to understand the healthcare industry. It couldn’t be more timely with the new economic stimulus package which includes $20 billion for healthcare IT.
—Linda Ewing, Regional Sales Director, Amcom Software
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