Kategoria BISAC: Medical >> Health Care Delivery

"At present nursing homes are designed . . . like outmoded zoos. Residents are kept in small rooms, emotionally isolated. Occasionally they are visited by family members who reach through the bars and offer them treats. Aides keep their bodies clean and presentable. . . . America invests huge amounts of money to maintain the body while leaving the person to languish, cut off from all they love." From Nobody's Home

After caring for his mother at the end of her life, Thomas Edward Gass felt drawn to serve the elderly. He took a job as a nursing home aide but was not prepared for the...

We are on the verge of the nation's worst nursing shortage in history. Dedicated nurses are leaving hospitals in droves, and there are not enough new recruits to the profession to meet demand. Even hospitals that were once very highly regarded for the quality of their nursing care, such as Boston's Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, now struggle to fill vacant positions. What happened?

Dana Beth Weinberg argues that hospital restructuring in the 1990s is to blame. In their attempts to retain profit margins or even just to stay afloat, hospitals adopted a common set of practices to...

Recent years have seen a growing interest in the questions of ethics and aging. Advances in medical technology have created dilemmas for physicians, nurses, and other health care professionals over such questions as the allocation of resources and a patient's -right to die.- At the same time, the aging of the American population raises concerns about social policies that involve the role of government. In Ethics in an Aging Society Harry R. Moody examines both the clinical and the policy issues that center around aging.

Moody pays special attention to the ethical problems...

Current issues in the public health arena have challenged the system to broaden its traditional focus on infectious disease to include chronic disease as well. As this change in emphasis takes place, professionals must be prepared to address the special chronic health concerns of older people living in the community. This textbook meets the training needs of those professionals.

Public Health and Aging examines the role of public health in the planning, coordination, and delivery of health promotion and disease prevention services to older people living outside of...

Approximately one-quarter of the U.S. population is enrolled in HMOs or similar managed care health plans, and the proportion is increasing. But even though such plans dominate today's agenda for health care reform, good, quantitative information on the performance of managed care programs is scarce. In Promise and Performance in Managed Care, Donald Freeborn and Clyde Pope draw on the research literature and unique data sources to provide that information.

Focusing on the human experience of managed care, the authors examine the effects of managed care on members as well as...

How do new diseases become part of the public health agenda? Emerging Illnesses and Society brings together historians, sociologists, epidemiologists, public health experts, and others to explore this vital issue. Contributors describe the processes by which patients' groups interact with medical researchers, public health institutions, and the media to identify and address previously unknown illnesses, including multiple sclerosis, Tourette syndrome, AIDS, lead poisoning, Lyme disease, and hepatitis C. The introductory chapter develops a general theoretical model of the social...

This rich history chronicles the prominent role of Catholic women religious in establishing the hospitals at the core of New York City's extensive Catholic medical network. Beginning with the opening of St. Vincent's Hospital in 1849, Bernadette McCauley relates how determined and pragmatic women of faith worked over the next eighty years to place the Catholic Church in the mainstream of American medicine.

Exploring the differences and similarities between Catholic hospitals and other hospitals, McCauley describes the particular cultural sensibility and management style that informed...

Over the past half-century, the social terrain of health and illness has been transformed. What were once considered normal human events and common human problems--birth, aging, menopause, alcoholism, and obesity--are now viewed as medical conditions. For better or worse, medicine increasingly permeates aspects of daily life.

Building on more than three decades of research, Peter Conrad explores the changing forces behind this trend with case studies of short stature, social anxiety, -male menopause, - erectile dysfunction, adult ADHD, and sexual orientation. He examines the...

Human rights violations are underlying causes of adverse health outcomes for vulnerable people and populations around the world. Public Health and Human Rights provides critical, evidence-based assessments and tools with which to investigate the role of rights abrogation in the health of populations--from repressive laws to social discord, gender-based violence, human trafficking, and violations in conflict.

Divided into three sections, this provocative work investigates how the complex interactions between rights and health can best be studied, analyzed, and remedied; how...

This book examines both common and unique health issues associated with a number of different groups African-American, Latino, Native American, Asian-American, and Hawaiian and explores the role of traditional and nontraditional treatments for each. The chapters represent a compendium of the most up-to-date...