Understanding Healthcare Economics: Managing Your Career in an Evolving Healthcare System - Hardcover

Healthcare economics is a topic of increasing importance due to the substantial changes that are expected to radically alter the way Americans obtain and finance healthcare. Understanding Healthcare Economics: Managing Your Career in an Evolving Healthcare System provides an evidence-based framework to help practitioners comprehend the changes already underway in our nation’s healthcare system. It presents important economic facts and explains the economic concepts needed to understand the implications of these facts. It also summarizes the results of recent empirical studies on access, cost, and quality problems in today’s healthcare system.

Explaining what the term healthcare crisis means, the book evaluates key reforms designed to ameliorate the crisis. It examines emerging trends in the healthcare delivery system to provide a clear understanding of the implications of recently implemented policy solutions. It also illustrates how public- and private-sector initiatives are working to reduce cost increases by fundamentally altering the systems for delivery of care through managed care organizations, accountable care organizations, and patient-centered medical homes.

The text identifies the pressures for change and examines six emerging strategies that can help boost efficiencies in the healthcare system. It addresses the macro-economic problems, such as the impact of changing demographics, as well as the micro-economic problems, such as lifestyle choices on healthcare costs.

Demystifying the terminology, facts, and types of changes that are currently underway, the book provides you with the understanding of healthcare economics you will need to identify viable strategies for adapting to the changes on the horizon.

William T. O’Donohue, PhD, received a doctorate in psychology from the State University of New York at Stony Brook and a master’s degree in philosophy from Indiana University. He is a licensed clinical psychologist in Nevada. He is a full professor of clinical psychology at the University of Nevada, Reno, and has directed the Victims of Crime Treatment Center, which provides free treatment to sexual assault victims at the university, for 17 years. Since 1996, he has received over $1,500,000 in federal grant monies from sources including the National Institute of Mental Health and the National Institute of Justice. He has published over 60 books, and more than 200 articles and book chapters.

Teresa Serratt, RN, PhD, is an assistant professor at the Orvis School of Nursing at the University of Nevada, Reno. She received her doctorate in nursing from the University of California, San Francisco, with a specialty in health policy. She currently teaches courses in healthcare leadership and management, healthcare analysis, and healthcare economics. Her primary research focus is health policy, nursing workforce, and organizational analysis of economic and quality issues of acute care hospitals.

As a registered nurse for over 20 years, she has spent the majority of her career at the bedside providing care to critically ill adult patients. She has also held hospital education and administrative positions. In these various roles, she has experienced firsthand some of the failures of our healthcare system and feels it is imperative that healthcare professionals understand the healthcare reform issues and join the debate.

Jeanne Wendel, PhD, earned a doctorate in economics from Southern Methodist University. She is an economics professor at the University of Nevada, Reno, where she teaches classes in health economics and the economics of government regulation. She completed the first Intermountain Advanced Training Program in Clinical Practice Improvement, served on a hospital design team, which implemented a hospital-wide quality improvement program, and supported quality improvement teams for two and a half years. She also served as the initial coordinator for the Nevada health information technology work group.