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Reviews the book "Poverty, Class and Health Culture in India," vol. 1, by Debabar Banerji.

Reviews the book 'Medicines for the Year 2000,' edited by George Teeling-Smith and Nicholas Wells.

The article reviews the book "The Self in Health and Illness: Patients, Professionals and Narrative Identity," edited by Frances Rapport and Paul Wainwright.

Reviews the book "Competition in the Health Care Sector: Ten Years Later," edited by W. Greenberg.

Reviews the book "Folk Medicine and Health Culture: Role of Folk Medicine in Modern Health Care," edited by T. Vaskilampi and C.P. MacCormack.

The article reviews the book "Competition in the Health Care Sector: Ten Years Later," edited by Warren Greenberg.

The article reviews the book "Public and Private Health Services: Complementarities and Conflicts, " edited by A. J. Culyer and B. Jonsson.

Reviews the book 'A New Approach to the Economics of Health Care,' edited by Mancur Olson.

Reviews the book 'Deregulating the Health Care Industry,' by Clark C. Havighurst.

One of the best known tradeoffs in insurance economics is between risk aversion and moral hazard. Greater insurance coverage implies less risk bearing by the insured but induces greater moral hazard. As a corollary, the less demand responds to price, the greater should be the coverage of the loss (Zeckhauser 1970; Ehrlich and Becker 1972; Pauly 1986). The tradeoff between risk aversion and moral hazard has given rise to much health economics literature on the desirability of cost sharing in health insurance, i.e., the price to the insured at the time of use, and we now know a good bit empirically about this tradeoff (Newhouse and the Insurance Experiment Group 1993, ch. 4). Perhaps based on these findings, many now believe that some initial cost sharing is optimal; the outcome should not be the comer solution of no cost sharing (e.g., U.S. Bipartisan Commission on Comprehensive Health Care 1990, p. 63). This paper argues that widespread health insurance creates another important tradeoff, less well recognized in the literature, between efficiency in production and selection. By efficiency in production, I mean least cost treatment of a patient's medical problem, holding quality constant. Thus, efficiency includes the quantity of services used to treat the problem, as well as the unit price of those services. By selection, I mean actions of economic agents on either side of the market to exploit unpriced risk heterogeneity and break pooling arrangements, with the result that some consumers may not obtain the insurance they desire. Whereas the essence of the moral hazard-risk aversion tradeoff is captured by the cost that the patient bears at the time of use, e.g., the size of a deductible, the essence of the selection-efficiency tradeoff is captured by the cost the health plan or medical provider bears at the time of use, or the amount of supply-side cost sharing, to use the term of Ellis and McGuire (1993). Analogous to coinsurance on the demand side, supply-side cost sharing in its simplest form is a linear combination of fee-for-service and capitation pricing, but nonlinear schedules are obviously possible. This paper largely concerns the tradeoff between these two bases of pricing in both the health insurance and the medical care delivery markets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Reviews the book "The Human Condition: An Ecological and Historical View," by William H. McNeill.

The article reviews the book "Medical Work in America: Essays on Health Care," by Eliot Friedson.

Reviews the book "Social Work and Primary Health Care," edited by A.W. Clare and R.H. Corney.

Reviews the book 'Nursing Care of Adults,' edited by Jamse P. Smith.

The article reviews the book "The Future of Health and Health Care Systems in the Industrialized Societies," edited by Bui Dang Ha Doan.

The article reviews the book "Evidence-Based Health Care: Supporting Evidence-Based Decision Making in Practice," by Helen Allan.

Reviews the book 'Hidden Assets--Values and Decision-making in the NHS,' by Bill New and Julia Neuberger.

The article reviews the book "Mutualism and Health Care: British Hospital Contributory Schemes in the Twentieth Century," by Martin Gorsky and John Mohan.

The article reviews the book "L'Europe et les soins de santé: Marché intérieur, sécurité sociale, concurrence," edited by Paul Nihoul and Anne-Claire Simon.

Reviews two volumes of the book "Social Work in Health Care: A Handbook for Practice," by K.W. Davidson and S.S. Clarke.

Reviews the book 'Market Reforms in Health Care: Current Issues, New Directions, Strategic Decisions,' edited by Jack A. Meyer.

Reviews the book "Health Visiting Principles in Practice."

Reviews the non-fiction book 'Learning in Health and Social Care,' vol. 1, edited by Michael Eraut.

This paper discusses an anonymous incident reporting scheme to reduce drug administration error on the hospital ward, as part of an effective, non-punitive, systems-focused approach to safety. Drug error is costly in terms of increased hospital stay, resources consumed, patient harm, lives lost and careers ruined. Safety initiatives that focus, not on blaming individuals, but on improving the wider system in which personnel work have been adopted in a number of branches of health care. However, in nursing, blame remains the predominant approach for dealing with error, and the ward has seen little application of the systems approach to safety. Safety interventions founded on an effective incident scheme typically pay for themselves in terms of dollar savings arising from averted harm. Recent calls for greater health-care safety require finding new ways to make drug administration safer throughout the hospital, and the scope for such safety gains on the hospital ward remains considerable. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Reviews the book "Problems and Progress in Medical Care. Essays on Current Research Second Series."

Reviews the book "Alzheimer's Disease: Basic Mechanisms, Diagnosis and Therapeutic Strategies," edited by K. Iqbal, D.R.C. McLachlan and B. Winblad.

Reviews the book 'Preparing Nurses for Using Information Systems Recommended Informatics Competencies,' edited by Hans E. Peterson and U. Gerdin-Jelger.

The article reviews the book "Disputing Doctors: The Socio-Legal Dynamics of Complaints About Medical Care," by L. Mulcahy.

Reviews the book "Valuing People," edited by Rachel Fyson and Linda Ward.

Reviews the book 'The Resourceful Patient,' by J.A. Muir Gray.

Reviews the book "In Care of the State: Health Care, Education and Welfare in Europe and the USA in the Modern Era," by A. de Swaan.

Reviews the book "Hazards in Hospital Care. Ensuring Patient Safety," by S.Y. Fagerhaugh.

Reviews the book "Mental Health Care in the European Community," by S.P. Mangen.

Reviews the book "Issues in the Political Economy of Health Care," edited by J.B. McKinlay.

Reviews the book "Planning for Priority Groups," by H. Glennister.

Reviews the book "Health Care in Big Cities," by Leslie H.W. Paine.

Reviews the book "Health Care: Regulation, Economics, Ethics, Practice," edited by Phillip H. Abelson.

Reviews the book 'More Medical Care, Better Health?: An Economic Analysis of Mortality Rates,' by Jack Hadley.

Reviews the book "Managing Health Systems in Developing Areas: Experiences From Afghanistan," edited by Ronald W. O. O'Connor.

The article reviews the book "Financial Rural Health Care," edited by La Vonne Straub and Norman Walzer.

Reviews the book 'Conflicts in Care. Medicine and Nursing,' by Lesley Mackay.

Reviews the book 'Quality and Regulation in Health Care International Experiences,' edited by Robert Dingwall and Paul Fenn.

The article reviews the book "Family Health Care Nursing: Theory, Practice and Research," 4th edition, edited by Joanna Rowe Kaakinen, Vivian Gedaly-Duff, Deborah Padgett Coehlo, and Shirley May Harmon Hanson

The article reviews the book "Health Care in America: Separate and Unequal," by Kant Patel and Mark E. Rushefsky.

The article reviews the book "Exploring Social Insurance: Can a Dose of Europe Cure Canadian Health Finance?," edited by Colleen Flood, Mark Stabile and Carolyn Hughes Tuohy.

This article reviews the book "Just Don't Get Sick: Access to Health Care in the Aftermath of Welfare Reform," by Karen Seccombe and Kim A. Hoffman.