Search

Chapter 7 of the book "Dead on Arrival: The Politics of Health Care in Twentieth-Century America" is presented. It traces the history of health care reform in the U.S. Particular focus is given to the relationship of various reform interests with the Democratic Party and the labor movement. The reform efforts of the American Association for Labor Legislation (AALL), the Committee for the Nation's Health (CNH), and the National Medical Association (NMA) are discussed in turn.

Chapter 3 of the book "Dead on Arrival: The Politics of Health Care in Twentieth-Century America" is presented. This chapter discusses the dilemma posed by health care due to the emergence of social insurance in the U.S. The treatment of social insurance as social policy during the 20th century is addressed. Other issues discussed include national health insurance, Medicare and Medicaid, and the distinction between social insurance and welfare medicine.

Chapter 4 of the book "Dead on Arrival: The Politics of Health Care in Twentieth-Century America" is presented. This chapter discusses the involvement of social policies and other cultural and ideological issues in the health care debate in the U.S. Subjects on health care reform and wartime health care discussed include politicized medicine, state-managed medicine and socialized medicine. Also discussed are arguments on the health care system in Great Britain and Canada.

This chapter analyzes the status of health care and consumer consumption in the U.S. in 2000. The idea of a market for health care was first spelt out in the 1989 issue of White Paper, Working for Patients and subsequently enacted in the 1990 National Health Service (NHS) and Community Care Act. Premised on the assumption that competition enhances efficiency, the White Paper divided the NHS into purchasers and providers of health care, while reaffirming the principle of providing health care free at the point of use. The purchasing and providing functions of health authorities (HA) were separated with district HA now expected to seek out the lowest cost providers while providers competed with each other to offer the services sought by purchasers at the cheapest price. To make the market work, supply side providers such as large hospitals and community units were given the opportunity to become self governing trusts with the promise of increased financial freedom and greater autonomy. Hence, one of the justifications for the development of the market for health care was that it would shift the culture of the NHS from one determined by the preferences and decisions of professionals to one shaped by the views and wishes of its users

Chapter 5 of the book "Dead on Arrival: The Politics of Health Care in Twentieth-Century America" is presented. This chapter discusses racial issues in the history of health care in the U.S. Subjects addressed include segregation in hospitals and the medical profession and its impact on African Americans throughout the late 19th- and 20th-centuries.

In 1905, Massachusetts General Hospital initiated the first medical social work program in the United States. Based on the writings of its leaders, this paper presents the early history of medical social work in the United States. Inspired by developments in European health care that emphasized the community context of disease, medical social work pioneers saw a need to individualize the patient while also promoting public health measures in the community, improving the patient's environment to eliminate the causes of disease. In addition, since they served patients because of their diseases rather than their poverty, medical social workers were among the first to provide social work services to the non-poor. In spite of their emphasis on environmental change, many of early medical social work leaders had all anti-institutional bias; they were suspicious of large-scale solutions for what they saw as fundamentally individual problems. Consequently, methods for promoting individual adaptation developed more rapidly than methods for promoting environmental change. Ironically, the medicalization of social problems in contemporary times has resulted in a focus on individual pathology rather than social and lifestyle causation in health, even as the rising cost and complexity of the system challenges health care consumers in the United States. Reaffirming the environmental emphasis of medical social work pioneers provides a way for today's health care social workers to incorporate environmental modification into their practice and promote the health of all citizens. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A bibliography of sources cited within this issue are presented including the article "Medical Arms Race: Excess Technology Adds to Soaring Cost," by C. Adams published in the October 16, 1984 issue of "Times Picayune," the book "Planning for Medical Progress through Education," by L. Coggeshall, and "Foundations of Social Theory," by J. Coleman.

This paper proposes that entrepreneurship/small business (E/SB) policy research in the United States imitates American policy. The author presents an overview of the E/SB policy in the United States and its association with E/SB policy research. The author then outlines the state of E/SB policy research in the U.S. and examines its six principal characteristics. According to the author, the U.S. has no small business or entrepreneurship policy. Instead, it has a competition policy in which small business and entrepreneurship play a significant role. The author also presents an example of the interface between policy and policy research to illustrate the six characteristics. The example concerns mandated employee health insurance in the United States. The author concludes with observations from the American experience that may help with understanding the direction E/SB policy research needs to take.

Health and health care delivery continue as dominant domestic issues in the United States. Health also represents a highly sophisticated social work practice area, requiring specific expertise for intervention with complex biopsychosocial patient care issues. Current social work curriculum content must reflect contemporary practice issues and educational resources must be improved to meet the documented need for adequately prepared health care professionals. This paper proposes a curriculum template for practice education and offers additional recommendations to enhance the educational process through increased field and academic collaboration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Chapter 2 of the book "The Invisible Safety Net: Protecting the Nation's Poor Children and Families," by Janet M. Currie is presented. It explores the importance of public health insurance especially to poor families and to vulnerable children in the U.S. It provides details about the public insurance safety net that are available to low-income women and children and the major changes that took place in the program after two decades.

Chapter 28 of the book "A History of AIDS Social Work in Hospitals: A Daring Response to an Epidemic" is presented. It presents a dialogue about the changes in social service delivery and supervision of HIV-positive patients in the U.S. It discusses the development of AIDS social work. It highlights the impact of medical assistance managed care on patient care, program development and practice issues.

The article focuses on practical aspects of providing psychiatric treatment to older Americans in office-based psychiatric private practices. The author discusses the mechanics of the process of treatment. One important focuses of community-based psychiatric ambulatory care is the need to create relationships with other community services and providers of care and assistance.

Chapter 7 of the book "The Economic Evolution of American Health Care: From Marcus Welby to Managed Care" is presented. It notes the varying quality of health care goods and services and emphasizes the importance of high quality. It considers several techniques of measuring and qualifying the outcomes of health care quality and describes some of the rankings of hospital quality. It also discusses the steps that companies have taken to promote managed care organization (MCO) quality.

Chapter 2 of the book "The Economic Evolution of American Health Care: From Marcus Welby to Managed Care" is presented. It describes two sources of potentially massive inefficiency in the traditional health economy or incentive problems namely moral hazard and demand inducement. It discusses the origins, growth, and eventual acceptance of health maintenance organizations (HMO) that are purported to restructure the inefficient incentives of traditional health economy.

Chapter 1 of the book "The Economic Evolution of American Health Care: From Marcus Welby to Managed Care" is presented. It compares traditional health care system, as embodied by Doctor Marcus Welby in the television show "Marcus Welby, M.D." with the modern medical care system. It elaborates the role of managed care organizations in this system. The difficulty that patients experience when shopping for medical care, dubbed the "shopping problem," is discussed along with factors affecting trust and the physician-patient relationship.

A reprint of the article "Nursing at the Crossroads," by Sister Rosemary Donley, which appeared in the November-December 1996 issue of "Nursing Economics" is presented. It discusses the choices open to the nursing profession and the American people in the post health care age in the U.S. The author presents these choices and their impact on medical and health care practice in the U.S.

Examines how roles for the corporate level nurse executive can be defined and measured. The transitional status of the leadership role in hospital nursing; Role of nurse leadership.