Understanding Health Services
Published on 1. August 2005
Book
Paperback/Softback
256 pages
978-0-335-21838-7 (ISBN)
Description
No single discipline can provide a full account of how and why health care is the way it is. This book provides you with a series of conceptual frameworks which help to unravel the apparent complexity that confronts the inexperienced observer. It demonstrates the need for contributions from medicine, sociology, economics, history and epidemiology. It also shows the necessity to consider health care at three key levels: individual patients and their experiences; health care organisations such as health centres and hospitals; and regional and national institutions such as governments and health insurance bodies. The book examines:
Inputs to health servicesProcesses of care OutcomesOrganization of services Improving the quality of health care
Series Editors: Rosalind Plowman and Nicki Thorogood.
Inputs to health servicesProcesses of care OutcomesOrganization of services Improving the quality of health care
Series Editors: Rosalind Plowman and Nicki Thorogood.
More details
Persons
Senior Honorary Lecturer at the Department of Public Health and Policy of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine
Content
Overview of the bookSection 1: Introduction
A systems approach to health services
Challenges facing health services
Formal and lay care
Section 2: Inputs to health care
Diseases and medical knowledge
Medical paradigms
Staff: the challenge of professionalism
Funding health care
Section 3: Processes of health care
The need and demand for health care
The relationship between need and use
Staff-patient interactions
Public as consumers and policy makers
Section 4: Outcome of health care
Outcomes
Section 5: Organization of services
Analysing health systems
Why are health systems the way they are?
Low and middle income countries: from colonial inheritance toprimary care
Low and middle income countries: from comprehensive primary careto global initiatives
Health services in high income countries
Section 6: Quality improvement
De?ning good quality health services
Performance assessment
Improving quality of care
Glossary
Index
A systems approach to health services
Challenges facing health services
Formal and lay care
Section 2: Inputs to health care
Diseases and medical knowledge
Medical paradigms
Staff: the challenge of professionalism
Funding health care
Section 3: Processes of health care
The need and demand for health care
The relationship between need and use
Staff-patient interactions
Public as consumers and policy makers
Section 4: Outcome of health care
Outcomes
Section 5: Organization of services
Analysing health systems
Why are health systems the way they are?
Low and middle income countries: from colonial inheritance toprimary care
Low and middle income countries: from comprehensive primary careto global initiatives
Health services in high income countries
Section 6: Quality improvement
De?ning good quality health services
Performance assessment
Improving quality of care
Glossary
Index