The development of better processes to provide proper healthcare has enhanced contemporary society. By implementing effective collaborative strategies, this ensures proper quality and instruction for both the patient and medical practitioners. Health Care Delivery and Clinical Science: Concepts, Methodologies, Tools, and Applications is a comprehensive reference source for the latest scholarly material on emerging strategies and methods for delivering optimal healthcare and examines the latest techniques and methods of clinical science. Highlighting a range of pertinent topics such as medication management, health literacy, and patient engagement, this multi-volume book is ideally designed for professionals, practitioners, researchers, academics, and graduate students interested in healthcare delivery and clinical science.

A new title in the acclaimed Understanding series that focuses on the science of healthcare delivery Over the past decade, the subject of Systems Science has skyrocketed in importance in the healthcare field. With its engaging, clinically relevant style, Understanding Healthcare Delivery Science is the perfect introduction to this timely topic. It covers every aspect of what actually constitutes “best care” and how it can be most efficiently delivered from an operational standpoint. The book is exceptional for two other reasons: numerous case vignettes put the content in a clinically relevant framework, and its comprehensive coverage spans everything from quality and safety to data and policy. Readers will find a valuable opening section that delivers an outstanding introductory discussion of Healthcare Delivery Science Co-author Dr. Michael Howell is a nationally recognized expert on healthcare quality, whose research has been covered by The New York Times, CNN, and Consumer Reports. He has served on national quality- and safety-related national advisory panels for the CDC, Society of Critical Care Medicine, CMS, and others. An active healthcare delivery scientist, Dr. Howell has published more than 90 research articles, editorials, and book chapters on topics related to quality, safety, patient-centeredness, and critical care.

As our nation enters a new era of medical science that offers the real prospect of personalized health care, we will be confronted by an increasingly complex array of health care options and decisions. The Learning Healthcare System considers how health care is structured to develop and to apply evidence-from health profession training and infrastructure development to advances in research methodology, patient engagement, payment schemes, and measurement-and highlights opportunities for the creation of a sustainable learning health care system that gets the right care to people when they need it and then captures the results for improvement. This book will be of primary interest to hospital and insurance industry administrators, health care providers, those who train and educate health workers, researchers, and policymakers. The Learning Healthcare System is the first in a series that will focus on issues important to improving the development and application of evidence in health care decision making. The Roundtable on Evidence-Based Medicine serves as a neutral venue for cooperative work among key stakeholders on several dimensions: to help transform the availability and use of the best evidence for the collaborative health care choices of each patient and provider; to drive the process of discovery as a natural outgrowth of patient care; and, ultimately, to ensure innovation, quality, safety, and value in health care.

The anthrax incidents following the 9/11 terrorist attacks put the spotlight on the nation's public health agencies, placing it under an unprecedented scrutiny that added new dimensions to the complex issues considered in this report. The Future of the Public's Health in the 21st Century reaffirms the vision of Healthy People 2010, and outlines a systems approach to assuring the nation's health in practice, research, and policy. This approach focuses on joining the unique resources and perspectives of diverse sectors and entities and challenges these groups to work in a concerted, strategic way to promote and protect the public's health. Focusing on diverse partnerships as the framework for public health, the book discusses: The need for a shift from an individual to a population-based approach in practice, research, policy, and community engagement. The status of the governmental public health infrastructure and what needs to be improved, including its interface with the health care delivery system. The roles nongovernment actors, such as academia, business, local communities and the media can play in creating a healthy nation. Providing an accessible analysis, this book will be important to public health policy-makers and practitioners, business and community leaders, health advocates, educators and journalists.

Patient engagement should be envisaged as a key priority today to innovate healthcare services delivery and to make it more effective and sustainable. The experience of engagement is a key qualifier of the exchange between the demand (i.e. citizens/patients) and the supply process of healthcare services. To understand and detect the strategic levers that sustain a good quality of patients’ engagement may thus allow not only to improve clinical outcomes, but also to increase patients’ satisfaction and to reduce the organizational costs of the delivery of services. By assuming a relational marketing perspective, the book offers practical insights about the developmental process of patients’ engagement, by suggesting concrete tools for assessing the levels of patients’ engagement and strategies to sustain it. Crucial resources to implement these strategies are also the new technologies that should be (1) implemented according to precise guidelines and (2) designed according to a user-centered design process. Furthermore, the book describes possible fields of patients’ engagement application by describing the best practices and experiences matured in different fields

This report is the twelfth assessment of the National Institutes of Health National Research Service Awards program. The research training needs of the country in basic biomedical, clinical, and behavioral and social sciences are considered. Also included are the training needs of oral health, nursing, and health services research. The report has been broadly constructed to take into account the rapidly evolving national and international health care needs. The past and present are analyzed, and predictions with regard to future needs are presented.

Drawing on the work of the Roundtable on Evidence-Based Medicine, the 2007 IOM Annual Meeting assessed some of the rapidly occurring changes in health care related to new diagnostic and treatment tools, emerging genetic insights, the developments in information technology, and healthcare costs, and discussed the need for a stronger focus on evidence to ensure that the promise of scientific discovery and technological innovation is efficiently captured to provide the right care for the right patient at the right time. As new discoveries continue to expand the universe of medical interventions, treatments, and methods of care, the need for a more systematic approach to evidence development and application becomes increasingly critical. Without better information about the effectiveness of different treatment options, the resulting uncertainty can lead to the delivery of services that may be unnecessary, unproven, or even harmful. Improving the evidence-base for medicine holds great potential to increase the quality and efficiency of medical care. The Annual Meeting, held on October 8, 2007, brought together many of the nation's leading authorities on various aspects of the issues - both challenges and opportunities - to present their perspectives and engage in discussion with the IOM membership.