Wireless. The word evokes those heady days long ago when radio ruled the entertainment world and families gathered around a console radio the size of a coffee table to marvel at a technology that emitted disembodied voices from far away
Not-for-profit organizations are among the most influential and powerful institutions in our society. They range in size from small and local to large and national—or even international. Their scope incorporates a wide range of activity: health and welfare, research, education, religion, social, and professional associations. They include foundations, membership societies, churches, hospitals…
Credit is part science, part art, and part gut-feel. The trick is to get the right mix.While there is no one absolute right way to handle the credit, collections, and accounts receivable functions, there are a few that are totally and irrefutably wrong. It is the mission of this book to identify both for the reader. For the last eight plus years, I have been lucky enough to spend my days talk…
During an influenza pandemic, healthcare workers will be on the front lines delivering care to patients and preventing further spread of the disease. Protecting the more than 13 million healthcare workers in the United States from illness or from infecting their families or the patients in their care is critical to limiting morbidity and mortality and preventing progression of a pandemic. The N…
The rapid pace of scientific discovery and technological innovation over the last several decades is unprecedented and raises the prospect of achieving dramatic improvements in the nation’s health and well-being. Yet stakeholders from across the healthcare system, from patients to practitioners to payers, are demanding fundamental improvements to a system that is seen as costly, fragmented, a…
The fundamental notion of the learning healthcare system—continuous improvement in effectiveness, efficiency, safety, and quality—is rooted in principles that medicine shares with engineering. In particular, the fields of systems engineering, industrial engineering, and operations research have long experience in the systematic design, analysis, and improvement of complex systems, notably i…
The Institute of Medicine’s Committee on Optimizing Graduate Medi- cal Trainee (Resident) Hours and Work Schedules to Improve Patient Safety evaluated the literature concerning (1) the impact of current residents’ duty hours on patient safety and (2) the relationship of hours of work and sleep to performance. The principal aim of residency training in the United States is to prepare young d…
Lack of adequate documentation is one of the largest pitfalls facing any accounting system. One of four excuses is usually given: (1) nobody reads it, (2) the hands-on approach in which each person teaches another is a better method, (3) written policies and procedures are too confining, and (4) nobody has the time to write documentation. In a constantly changing accounting world, none of t…
There is currently a crisis in cancer care that experts predict will worsen in the near future due to a rapidly growing population of Americans requiring cancer care combined with an aging/retiring oncology workforce, and inadequate numbers of replacement workers. By 2020, the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) predicts a 48 percent increase in cancer incidence and an 81 percent incre…
The first several chapters of this text present the accounting and re- porting for investment activities of businesses. The focus is on investments when one firm possesses either significant influence or control over another through ownership of voting shares. When one firm owns enough voting shares to be able to affect the decisions of another, ac- counting for the investment can become challe…
The most compelling reason for finding ways of successfully treating people who commit sexual offences against children is one of child protection. Programmes to change the behaviour of offenders may have a beneficial effect on the individuals involved and enable them to rejoin society or to be reunited with their families. But for the majority of workers engaged in managing programmes, in…
The United States faces the real possibility of a catastrophic public health event that involves tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of victims. Public health emergencies—such as the 2009 H1N1 pandemic, an intentional anthrax release, infectious disease threats such as severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), fires, floods, earthquakes, and hurri- canes—highlight the ever-changing t…
In June 2009 the Institute of Medicine’s (IOM’s) Forum on Medical and Public Health Preparedness for Catastrophic Events held a workshop with the goal of convening many of the best minds in health preparedness for a wide-ranging update on preparations for a major public health threat. For the health community, a primary issue at hand before and during a catastrophic incident is how to prov…
Health and health care are going digital. As multiple intersecting plat- forms evolve to form a novel operational foundation for health and health care—the nation’s digital health utility—the stage is set for fundamental and unprecedented transformation. Most changes will occur virtually out of sight, and the pace and profile of the transformation will be determined by stewardship that fo…
With employees still reeling from workplace budget cuts, now’s a great time for new team building ideas. No, you don’t need an expensive round of paintball to gain the benefits of team building exercises, but you do need to squeeze the most out of them. In this special report, 17 Team Building Ideas, we’ll show you how to do that
Slight variations in genetic composition can contribute greatly to the diversity which we see amongst individuals, from determining eye color and height to increasing the risk of developing breast cancer or heart disease. Numerous gene–disease associations are now known, and genetic/genomic testing is a relatively common laboratory approach for diagnosing presymp- tomatic genetic disorders, c…
The severity of the impacts of extreme and non-extreme weather and climate events depends strongly on the level of vulnerability and exposure to these events (high confidence). [2.2.1, 2.3, 2.5] Trends in vulnerability and exposure are major drivers of changes in disaster risk, and of impacts when risk is realized (high confidence). [2.5] Understanding the multi-faceted nature of vulnerability …
This chapter introduces students to the different aspects of international marketing that will enable them to learn its various nuances with relative ease. Students will learn about the major differences between domestic and international marketing. The methods of scanning the business and competitive environment are discussed in this chapter. This will help students to plan marketing in a …
‘“The joy of working harmoniously with small groups of people who are dedicated to something bigger than themselves, and are completely loyal to each other, counts in my experience as one of the most rewarding things in life,” a senior manager told me. Most of us would agree with him.’
Clinicians can no longer stay abreast of the rapidly expand- ing knowledge bases related to health. The number of random- ized controlled trials published in MEDLINE (a medical literature database) grew from 5,000 per year in 1978–1985 to 25,000 per year in 1994–2001. Furthermore, contentions that much of the literature may be biased and not applicable to important subsets of target populat…
As attention is increasingly devoted to U.S. society’s needs for access to health care and health care delivery, one change that requires immediate attention concerns the many aspects of care that are migrating out of formal medical facilities and into the home. Although the costs of care are one driver of this change, there is also recognition that health care delivered at home is valued by …
The number of people living with HIV/AIDS (PLWHA) in the United States is growing each year largely due both to advances in treatment that allow HIV-infected individuals to live longer and healthier lives and to a steady number of new HIV infections each year. The U.S. Centers for Dis- ease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimates that there were 1.2 million people living with HIV infection in th…
The Institute of Medicine (IOM) report To Err Is Human estimated that 44,000-98,000 lives are lost every year due to medical errors in hospitals and led to the widespread recognition that health care is not safe enough, catalyzing a revolution to improve the quality of care.1 Despite considerable effort, patient safety has not yet improved to the degree hoped for in the IOM report Crossing the …