Reviews (17)

First we start with a mistake...
Having observed the healthcare industry for the last couple of decades, I would like to point out a flaw in the author's recommendations:
the next 20 years, explained
Michael Porter, of value chain and competitive advantage fame, has taken on the US health care system.Your reviewer, who is speaking from inside the system, can guarantee that both his diagnosis and his proposed fix are bang on. In short, you bring the US healthcare system in line with other industries by making information about the outcomes of healthcare available to consumers, then letting them choose. How to get there from here takes up most of the book, and it is as brilliant and thoughtful as Porter fans have come to expect. Read this one.

A sentinel work on healthcare reform
Michael Porter and Elizabeth Teisberg have presented a sentinel work in the field of healthcare management.American healthcare is capable of providing the very best skill, professional expertise, and technology the world has ever seen. What is failing in our healthcare system is the management and business organization required deliver value to the recipients of this expertise-- patients.
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Subjects:  1. Business & Economics    2. Business / Economics / Finance    3. Business/Economics    4. Cost control    5. Cost effectiveness    6. Economic Conditions    7. Evaluation Of Health Services    8. Health Care Issues    9. Health Policy    10. Industries - General    11. Management - General    12. Medical Economics    13. Medical care    14. Public Policy - Economic Policy    15. Quality control    16. Business strategy   

Subjects:  1. General    2. Health & Fitness    3. Health Care Issues    4. Health Policy    5. Health planning    6. Health/Fitness    7. Medical / Nursing    8. Medical policy    9. Medicine    10. Public Health    11. United States    12. Central government policies    13. Health & Fitness / General    14. Health systems & services   

Reviews (2)

The dis ease of living in the US
The costs of sprawl are enormous.This book describes the costs in terms of many different types of public health measurements.If you haven 't thought about sprawl, this is a good place to start.It is chilling to think about how many physical, emotional, psychological and medical ramifications there are to the US automobile lifestyle.The price to degradation of the planet was not discussed in depth but that too would make you think about our legacy of our lifestyle to the quality of our planet for future generations. I am encouraged that the topic is being developed.The automobile lifestyle is addictive and to change it will require a paradigm shift.The shift starts with organized discussions and lucidly presented data.This book is excellent on both accounts.

reasonably well done
A broad (though not particularly deep) guide to the public health problems associated with sprawl, including: (1) the air pollution caused by sprawl-induced auto traffic, (2) the health consequences of the reduction in walking caused by automobile dependency, (3) injuries and deaths from auto traffic, (4) water quality problems associated with suburban development, (5) the alleged intangible costs of automobile dependency (e.g. driving-induced stress, the isolation of nondrivers).None of these issues are addressed in enormous detail; for example, the book occasionally mentions pro-sprawl counterarguments, but does not fully address them.But then again, each of these topics could probably justify a separate book. ... Read more

Subjects:  1. Cities and towns    2. City planning    3. Do-It-Yourself    4. Environmental Health    5. Environmental aspects    6. Growth    7. Health Policy    8. House & Home    9. Politics / Current Events    10. Public Health    11. Public Policy - City Planning & Urban Dev.    12. Reference    13. Urban Planning    14. Health systems & services    15. Political Science / City Planning & Urban Development    16. Urban & municipal planning   

Reviews (4)

Delivered as promised and in great condition
It came a bit slower than expected (say 2 weeks, when I was expecting to get it in one), but overall I was very pleased with the transaction.

Easy Read that Explains How Policy is Made
I am taking a course in Health Policy and the Political System and opted to use this book instead of that recommended by my professor. This book examined all the important aspects of policy making - paying close attention to the political actors - and has helped tremendously in my understanding of the politics surrounding health policy.

Best book in print on the health policy process
I have used this book for a number of years now in a class I teach on the Politics of Health Policy (along with Kingdon's classic). It provides an excellent overview of how health policy is made and the politics around it, drawing on both the academic literature as well as recent policies. The second edition is heavily revised from the first and contains up to date examples. An excellent academic overview of the health policy process. ... Read more

Subjects:  1. Health Care Delivery    2. Health Policy    3. Medical    4. Medical / Nursing    5. Medical policy    6. Politics    7. Public Policy - Social Policy    8. United States    9. Health systems & services    10. History / Europe / General    11. Medical / Health Policy    12. Medical-Health Care Delivery    13. Political Science-Public Policy - Social Policy    14. Political science & theory    15. USA   

Reviews (3)

How to empower health care consumers

Huge but a litle simplistic
Sub-Title: Implications for Providers, Players, and Policy-Makers --,Citizen participation, Consumer satisfaction, Evaluation, Health & Fitness, Health Care Administration, Health Care Delivery, Health Care Issues, Health Policy, Health planning, Health/Fitness, Medical / Nursing, Patient Compliance, Patient satisfaction, Health systems & services, Medical / Administration, Personal & public health, Medical ==If your interests or profession lies in any area of health care this is a book that you almost have to have. In its almost 1,000 pages nearly every aspect of health care coverage is discussed. The format of the book includes some 200 pages written by Professor Herslinger followed by some 72 articles written by some 93 participants in a conference she held. As you would expect, the quality of the papers vary greatly. ==There are also a few reasons to disagree with some of Professor Herslingers basic thesis. She seems to believe that health insurers would compete in a fair market place to provide care to anyone. This is simply not true. If an insurance company can pre-select to eliminate giving any coverage at all to the sicker or more risky patients, it is to their benefit. An AIDS patient, with a requirement for expensive drugs can be folded into the coverage written for a large group, but an individual policy would have to be very expensive, or simply not written at all. The coverage of such patients is covered with what I think are unrealistic assumptions. ==The book presents a series of views that are just a bit simplistic, but which are forming a part of the national debate on health care. The information is needed if only to be aware of the discussion.

Thoughtful Contribution
In Consumer-Driven Health Care, Regina E. Herzlinger, a leading health care thought leader and a professor at the Harvard Business School, provides a thought-provoking look inside a new, powerful force slowly transforming America's dysfunctional health care industry. Consumer-Driven Health Care builds on her popular 1997 book Market-Driven Health Care: Who Wins, Who Loses in the Transformation of America's Largest Service Industry.
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Subjects:  1. Citizen participation    2. Consumer satisfaction    3. Evaluation    4. Health & Fitness    5. Health Care Administration    6. Health Care Delivery    7. Health Care Issues    8. Health Policy    9. Health planning    10. Health/Fitness    11. Medical / Nursing    12. Patient Compliance    13. Patient satisfaction    14. Health systems & services    15. Medical / Administration    16. Personal & public health    17. Medical   

Reviews (1)

A history of America's best-kept secret
With a limited understanding of osteopathic medicine's roots, I set on a crash course to find an osteopathic medical history book similar to what a Kenneth Ludmerer's "Time to Heal" did for the history of medicine itself.And with Norman Gevitz's book, I was surely not disappointed.One would think that as a book recommended by the AOA and written by a osteopathic medical school professor, the book would be slanted.However, Gevitz does a great job at maintaining neutrality as a historian while demonstrating a certain degree of candidness, particularly about M.D./D.O. relations and the future of osteopathic medicine.Despite my ecstasy for this book, I do feel that there are certain portions of this book that can be further elaborated (reasoning behind the four-star rating).For example, I would like it if more material was included about osteopathic medicine between 1960 and today.Specifically, Gevitz seems to gloss over the political and social reverberations behind Henry Kissinger's monumental decision to admit D.O.s in the military as equals to M.D.s.Nevertheless, I thought the book was very well written and has definitely sparked an interest into one of this nation's best-kept secrets. ... Read more

Subjects:  1. Health Policy    2. History    3. Medical    4. Medical / Nursing    5. Osteopathic Medicine    6. Osteopathy    7. United States    8. Chiropractic & osteopathy    9. Education / Elementary    10. USA   

Subjects:  1. Cancer    2. Diet / Health / Fitness    3. Diseases - Cancer    4. Healing    5. Health Policy    6. Medical    7. Medical / Nursing    8. Oncology    9. Patients    10. Popular works    11. Psychological aspects    12. Rehabilitation    13. Coping with illness    14. Medical / Health Policy   

Reviews (1)

Excellence for health economist
This book is excellent for health economists to initiate modern research design that use intermediate measurement to infer to longitudinal outcome. Anyway, it does not neglect the traditional methodology of health economics. Because of complicated methodology that is difficult to understand, there are not so enough the varied example to assist. ... Read more

Subjects:  1. Health Policy    2. Medical    3. Medical / Nursing    4. Public Health    5. Economics    6. Health systems & services    7. Medical / Public Health    8. Medicine | Public Health    9. Public health & preventive medicine   

Subjects:  1. Capitalism    2. Cost control    3. Health Care Delivery    4. Health Policy    5. Medical    6. Medical / Nursing    7. Medical care    8. Medical economics    9. Health & Fitness / General   

Reviews (4)

A solid argument stating that not everybody requires extensive health care
Crisis Of Abundance: Rethinking How We Pay For Health Care by professional economist Arnold Kling is an in-depth and informative study of the American health care system and the troubling attributes which, when analyzed, require change if a worsening national crisis in health care is to be avoided. Offering a series of observational-based descriptive analysis as to current health care system stresses, Crisis Of Abundance presents a solid argument stating that not everybody requires extensive health care. Crisis Of Abundance is to be given high praise and very strongly recommended for its iconoclastic yet informative presentation of critically important issues surrounding the present and deepening crisis in American health care, as well as the cultural and political issues affecting attempts at reform.
No Other Book Like This
Health care is a diffiuclt issue for people to discuss honestly today. Arnold Kling has done something rare -- he has provided an honest and objective account of the problems with our current health care system. No matter what your political orientation, there will be material in this book that will bother you -- which suggests he is on to something. Highly recommended.

Well worth reading
If you've ever wondered why health care is so expensive in America, Kling will fill you in. Despite what many of us believe(d), it's not because of greedy pharmas or wasteful paperwork - as Kling shows, those ideas just don't hold water to explain the obscene cost hikes in recent years. Kling makes a great case that what has caused our problems is what he calls "premium medicine" - or health care spending whose cost exceeds its benefit.
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Subjects:  1. Government - U.S. Government    2. Health Care    3. Health Policy    4. Health care reform    5. Medical care, Cost of    6. Medical economics    7. Political Science    8. Politics / Current Events    9. Politics/International Relations    10. Public Policy - General    11. Public Policy - Social Policy    12. Social Policy    13. United States    14. Non-Classifiable   

Subjects:  1. Business / Economics / Finance    2. Cost effectiveness    3. Evaluation    4. Health Care Delivery    5. Health Policy    6. Health/Fitness    7. Industries - General    8. Medical    9. Medical care    10. Medical care, Cost of    11. Public Health    12. Emergency services    13. Epidemiology & medical statistics    14. Health systems & services    15. Industry & Industrial Studies    16. Medical / Health Policy    17. Medicine | Public Health   

Subjects:  1. Biography / Autobiography    2. Diseases    3. Equality    4. General    5. Health    6. Health Care Delivery    7. Health Policy    8. Health Risk Assessment    9. Health aspects    10. Medical    11. Medical / Nursing    12. Social aspects    13. Epidemiology & medical statistics    14. Social groups & communities   

Reviews (2)

Remarkable, inspiring, and wonderful but occassionally painful to read.
A wonderful book told with humility, intelligence, warmth, anger and knowledge.
Outstanding
Escape Fire is collection of compelling speeches by one of America's leading crusaders for health care quality and patient safety - Don Berwick, MD, founder and president of the Boston-based Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI.org).
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Subjects:  1. Health Care    2. Health Care Delivery    3. Health Policy    4. Health care reform    5. Health services administration    6. Medical    7. Medical / Nursing    8. Medical care    9. Public Health    10. Quality control    11. United States    12. Health systems & services    13. Medical / Public Health   

Reviews (8)

You've got to read this book!
I received this book as a gift. There are quite a few books on this subject on the market and this one is the best. I too could not put it down and finished it in 3 days. It's a huge book, a great resource that is well researched and written.. I have a few friends who've purchased this book and really loved it too. I can highly recommend this book
Understanding Health Policy
This book is very well written. Though it crams a lot of information into a small number of pages, it is easy to understand. It is excellent at covering all angles of a topic.

A little too focused on clinicians
I needed a book to use for a class I am teaching.This book, while excellent was focused on the clinicians' point of view, somewhat to the exclusion of other angles.
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Subjects:  1. Administration    2. Biostatistics    3. Health Care Policy    4. Health Policy    5. Medical    6. Medical / Nursing    7. Health systems & services    8. Medical / Biostatistics    9. USA   

Editorial Review

What do Russia, Zaire, Los Angeles, and--most likely--your community have in common? Each is woefully unprepared to deal with a major epidemic, whether it's caused by bioterrorism or by new or reemerging diseases resistant to antibiotics. After the publication of her critically acclaimed Read more

Reviews (44)

Betrayal of Trust
I received what looked like a nicely preserved used copy.
promising start but poor finish
If horror writer Stephen King ever suffers from writer's block, he should read this book's opening chapter, where Pulitzer Prize winner Laurie Garrett describes traveling into the plague ravished Indian city of Surat. The description, which belongs more in the Book of Revelations than in a chronicle of modern day health care, is stomach churning. Irula tribesmen are paid to catch the plague carrying rats - and are encouraged to eat their prey. The rats, being the breeding grounds for all conceivable types of plagues and pestilences that they are, quickly turn the Irula predators into their prey. Even as the yesinia pestis bacterium and its bubonic plague cousin were devastating the city, Surat's Aids-racked prostitutes continued to ply their trade. Life goes on, even in the midst of death.
Betrayal of Trust
I really enjoyed reading this book, so much so that I assigned it as a text for a course in Issues in International Health. The writing is clear, and the topics addressed are timely and detailed. As a text, it would be better to have more and shorter chapters.As a source of information, it is excellent. ... Read more

Subjects:  1. Current Affairs    2. Epidemiology    3. Health Policy    4. Medical / Nursing    5. Medical policy    6. Political    7. Politics/International Relations    8. Popular works    9. Public Health    10. Public Policy - General    11. World health    12. Current Events / Political   

Reviews (4)

Oh Please!!
If your health is your concern then this awful little book misses by a mile.It has always amazed me the number of people who profess to draw conclusions from evidence but have no basic mastery of critical thinking or logic.It is as if they skipped or failed that class in college but decided they were smart enough that it didn't matter.Mr. Richards' book is a poster child for failed logic, opinion masquerading as fact and belief in the written word regardless of source.The only thing he lacks is a chapter on who shot JFK. (...I read on the net the Skull and Bones was involved and the CIA covered it up)
You've got to read this book!
I received this book as a gift. There are quite a few books on this subject on the market and this one is the best. I too could not put it down and finished it in 3 days. It's a huge book, a great resource that is well researched and written.. I have a few friends who've purchased this book and really loved it too. I can highly recommend this book
Illuminati and Bilderbergers at it again?
Although this book confirms many of our suspicions that the FDA and the pharmaceutical companies have an unseemly relationship that does not result in the protection of the public, the author spends too much time dredging up well-known conspiracy theories. More than half of the book is taken up in explaining the relationship between the 'One-World-Government' and big industrialists. One can go to dozens of web sites to get that type of information without spending any money.When I started wading through Richards' past history of the conspirators, I was wondering how long it would take before he brought in the Illuminati, the Bilderbergers and the Jews. Lo and behold, the first two made their appearance on cue and I was pleasantly surprised that, for once, a conspiracy theorist left the Jews alone.
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Subjects:  1. Health Care Delivery    2. Health Policy    3. Medical    4. Medical / Nursing    5. Public Health    6. Health & Fitness / General   

Reviews (16)

Does Well Enough
This book attempts to arm the reader against the medical establishment's growing insistence that we are all likely to be diseased and that we all need to subject ourselves to numerous screenings and treatments to keep us going.
Frustrating mix of wisdom and dogma
There appears to be a large discrepancy between how effective most people think modern medical practices are and the evidence that experts have presented suggesting that it You must become your own health advocate.
When you go to a doctor, should you passively accept and follow whatever advice you get? In this book, Nortin Hadler advises you to take active control of your medical treatment. Many common treatments lack scientific justification, do nothing for you, or put you at risk for unwanted side effects. You can protect yourself from these practices. Hadler offers some information and tools to help you.
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Subjects:  1. Consumer Health    2. Health Care Issues    3. Health Policy    4. Health attitudes    5. Health behavior    6. Medical    7. Medical care    8. Utilization    9. Health systems & services    10. Medicine: General Issues    11. Popular medicine   

Reviews (2)

Good Balance of Theory, Finance and practice
Dr. Platt in this book offers a balanced mix of academic and practical examples.This book is an excellant first read on many subjects in the turnaround field. Indispensable Addition to Turnaround Management Literature
Up to now the literature of turnaround management has consisted mainly ofcase studies and the personal experiences of practitioners.Some of thematerial is widely accepted as good."Taking Charge" by JohnWhitney comes to mind.Some is a matter of personal taste. "MeanBusiness" by Al Dunlap is a recent example.Read more

Subjects:  1. Business & Economics    2. Business / Economics / Finance    3. Business/Economics    4. Corporate turnarounds    5. Health Policy    6. Industrial Management    7. Management - General    8. Structural Adjustment    9. Management & management techniques    10. Medical / Health Policy   

Reviews (2)

Too many cooks (even if they are good ones) spoil the broth
This book pulls together a lot of information, but in my opinion it is written and organized very very poorly. I have over 10 yrs of experience in in the healthcare industry and came across this book during a grad level course in CEA.
That's a good textbook for cost-effectiveness research in m
Recently, there is less book to approach the cost-effectiveness point in medicine . I think this book can give us the new concepts of this research. ... Read more

Subjects:  1. Business / Economics / Finance    2. Business/Economics    3. Cost effectiveness    4. Cost-Benefit Analysis    5. Costs Of Health Care    6. Health Care Costs    7. Health Policy    8. Industries - General    9. Medical    10. Medical care    11. Methodology    12. Public Health    13. Research    14. Emergency services    15. Hospital administration & management    16. Management decision making    17. Medical / Health Policy    18. Medicine | Public Health   

Subjects:  1. Health Care Reform    2. Health Policy    3. Health