This volume on patient safety revolves around a central question: How can the increased emphasis on patient safety among healthcare managers be translated into better policy and reduced clinical risk? The twelve contributions in this volume are divided between four sections: theoretical perspectives on managing patient safety; top management perspectives on patient safety; health information technology perspectives on patient safety; and organizational behavior and change perspectives on patient safety. The issue of patient safety provides a fertile niche for management researchers to test...

Features reviews of health care management, linking concerns about health care workforce management with health care organization management issues. This book focuses on health care workforce management issues, including allied health professionals, nurses, and physicians, and on health care organization management issues.

Dramatic changes to the structure of health systems since the 1980s has seen the development of large, integrated health organizations designed to provide scale and scope advantages, improve the quality of care and health outcomes, and provide greater bargaining power relative to payers and large employers. This transition has led to greater interest in understanding hospitals and health systems as complex systems. Two important themes emerged from this effort: 1. Creation and organization of physician-health organizations, and alignment of these organizations with hospital or system...

The mission of healthcare organizations has undergone a remarkable transformation from curing disease to caring for the well-being of populations. While health care policy has explored this domain before, notably in Health Maintenance Organizations, the current efforts to create Patient-Centered Medical Homes (PCMHs) and Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs) represent a broader effort to move organizational responsibilities towards population health and care management. Volume 16 of AHCM presents papers that explore this topic across various levels of the healthcare system and employing...

Significant variations in the quality of health care management practices are present both within and across local, regional, and international health systems. With increasing globalization of health services, both quality and efficiency of care can benefit from shared learning on a regional and global basis. Although systems and quality of health care delivery differ across the world, empirical research has found that people involved in health care, whether in the role of patients or health care providers, have similar wants and needs. Identifying and documenting best practices within and...

This volume explores the ways in which structural changes in health care environments impact patient safety. It delves into the potential that design thinking can have when applied to organizational systems and structures, as well as the physical environment, to mitigate risks, reduce medical errors and ultimately improve the quality of care, provider well-being, and the overall patient experience.  Much of health management empirical research has focused on the process and outcomes and then attempted to reverse engineer the structure that may reasonably explain that. This volume presents...

Shedding light on current transformations in payment mechanisms and transparency of hospital performance data and prices, this volume of Advances in Health Care Management presents findings on hospital profitability, cost, and organizational structures. Divided into two sections: 'Reimbursement, Cost and Profitability' and 'The Move Towards Transparency', the chapters employ a variety of research methodologies to explore the impact of transformation in payment and debt structures, profitability, and horizontal or vertical integration on outcomes such as price, clinical outcomes, and health...

The 20th volume of Advances in Health Care Management showcases how health care management research helps to further understand grand challenges in health care: what they are, why they exist, the consequences that they have, and what can be done to address them. Grand challenges are large, unresolved problems. “Grand health care challenges” include current events such as the COVID-19 pandemic, and ongoing challenges related to the quadruple aim of health care: improving the health of populations, reducing the cost of healthcare, improving patient care experiences, and improving the...