Encyclopedia Of Health Services Research

Description:
At the very heart of modern healthcare is a critical paradox. Today, as never before, healthcare has the ability to enhance the quality and duration of life. At the same time, healthcare has become so enormously costly that it can easily bankrupt governments and impoverish individuals and families. According to federal forecasters, by the year 2015 one in every five U.S. dollars will be spent on healthcare, for total annual healthcare spending of more than $4 trillion. While the cost of healthcare is going up, the number of individuals and families without health insurance coverage is increasing. For many, the miracles of modern medicine may be unaffordable. 'Health Services Research' investigates the relationship between the factors of cost, quality, and access to healthcare and their impact upon medical outcomes (i.e., death, disease, disability, discomfort, and dissatisfaction with care). 'Health Services Research' addresses such key questions as, Why is the cost of healthcare always increasing? How can healthcare costs be successfully contained without jeopardizing quality? How can medical errors be eliminated? What is the medical impact of not having health insurance coverage? The proposed encyclopedia addresses these and other important questions and issues.

Table of Contents:
Nursing Home Quality - Charles Phillips, Catherine Hawes

Author Biography:
Ross M. Mullner, PhD, MPH, is Associate Professor of Health Policy Administration at the University of Illinois at Chicago. He also serves as Special Assistant to the Director of the Illinois Department of Healthcare and Family Services and as Visiting Adjunct Associate Professor in the Department of Health Systems Management at Rush University. His research interests include health services research, health care marketing, and the history of public health, and he has investigated factors leading to hospital closures, mergers and consolidation of health facilities and management issues. He teaches courses on health services research and on health care marketing, as well as managed care, epidemiology, and health care eonomics. He is an Associate Editor for the Journal of Medical Systems and has served as Guest Editor for several special issues of this journal, as well as for the Journal of Consumer Marketing (a special issue on Pharmaceutical Marketing). In addition to nearly 100 articles, he has written or edited several books and monographs, including Health Care, Technology, and the Competitive Environment.