Health Care USA: Understanding Its Organization and Delivery by Harry A. Sultz, Kristina M. Young

From the Publisher

Health Care USA: Understanding Its Organization and Delivery, Second Edition reflects recent major legislative changes that have occurred in Medicare, Medicaid and public health. The growing concern about mental health services will be covered by taking a close look at emerging behavioral health managed care organizations. The new edition will also reflect the increased penetration of managed care across the country and its effect on not only the health care industry, but also on consumers. Current benchmarks in all areas of health care will be thoroughly updated. Also, an Instructor's Manual is available to support this book.

Eugene C. Rich

This is a relatively brief (320 page) introductory textbook on the U.S. healthcare system written for students in the health professions. The purpose is to provide a text for introductory courses on the U.S. healthcare system for students entering the health professions, including public health, medicine, nursing, dentistry, pharmacy, and allied health. As such, the audience is students in the health professions. To facilitate its use as a teaching text, the authors have organized this book in a succession of chapters intended to stand alone as reviews of specific subjects, or when read sequentially, to build a comprehensive understanding of the U.S. healthcare system. Therefore, this book begins with two general chapters followed by a series of topics organized around different structural features of the delivery system (e.g., hospitals, ambulatory care, medical education, etc.). The book also includes chapters on general topics, such as healthcare personnel, finance, and healthcare research, and concludes with a brief reflection on the future of U.S. healthcare. There is a helpful list of abbreviations at the end, which can assist students grappling with the alphabet soup of the U.S. healthcare system. The authors' effort to organize this text in chapters that stand alone and provide incremental information poses a challenge to the book as a coherent whole. As a result, key topics (the aging U.S. population, Medicare, managed care) receive brief and overlapping discussion in several chapters, rather than focused, thorough treatment. Other important developments such as physician assistants, nurse practitioners, the NIH, and the biotechnology industry receive limited attention.References for some chapters are quite limited and often do not include key source material for students who may wish to explore the topic further.

James D. Bramble

This is a general text on the organization and delivery of healthcare services. This second edition is updated with significant developments. The purpose is to provide a broad and general overview of the healthcare system. This book is intended for use as text for introductory courses on the organization and delivery of healthcare services. Thus it is primarily intended for students pursuing education as clinicians, administrators, policy makers, or other allied health professions within the healthcare system. The chapters are self-explanatory and can stand alone; however, when combined with the other chapters, they build a comprehensive picture of the U.S. healthcare system. The authors provide a brief discussion of the development and current status of our healthcare system, present the specific healthcare players and policies, and end with a chapter concerning the future of the healthcare system. Specific subjects include the different organizational structures, healthcare personnel, and policies that are integral in the delivery of healthcare services. An appendix of acronyms will be very useful to the reader. This book covers the essential topics for understanding the U.S. healthcare system. Though admittedly lacking in detail, the breadth of the text provides the beginning student with an understanding of the more vital components of our delivery system. An easily read text allows one to begin to understand an ever-increasingly complex healthcare system. However, because of the book's intent, many important topics only receive minimal attention that serves to detract from the text's comprehensiveness.

Doody Review Services

Reviewer: James D. Bramble, PhD (Creighton University)
Description: This is an update of a general book on the organization and delivery of healthcare services.
Purpose: The purpose is to provide a clear understanding and overview of the healthcare system and the complicated and complex issues that it confronts. This is a useful book for courses on the organization and delivery of healthcare services.
Audience: Intended for students of healthcare and related professions, healthcare practitioners can also benefit from the broad understanding of the U.S. healthcare system addressed in this book.
Features: The chapters together provide a broad overview of the social and political forces that help shape the complex structures and processes of the U.S. healthcare system. Each chapter begins with a brief description of its contents and is able to stand alone for the reader wishing to study specific topics. In addition to an appendix of acronyms, the authors included a list of web site address of U.S. government and other related healthcare sites for the reader.
Assessment: Updates to this edition provide relevant recent studies and statistics that further the discussion started in the previous edition. The breadth of the book seems more than adequate to familiarize the reader with the U.S. healthcare system. By the authors’ own admission, however, readers from allied health professions (i.e., physical therapy) may be disappointed with the lack of specifics regarding their area of specialty. Nonetheless, allied healthcare providers need a greater understanding of the issues affecting the healthcare delivery system in which they work. With easy to read and well organized chapters accompanied by appropriate figures and tables, this book accomplishes its goal of providing a basic broad understanding of the American healthcare system.

Booknews

This text for introductory courses on the organization of health at schools and colleges that prepare health professionals is designed to provide the reader with an understanding of the total health care system. Writing from a population perspective, the authors cover such topics as hospital reengineering, ambulatory and long-term care, medical education, health care personnel, finance and managed care, and mental health service. Annotation c. by Book News, Inc., Portland, Or.

Booknews

Describes the changing roles and functions of health care in the US, and looks at the technical, economic, political, and social forces responsible for those changes. This edition integrates recent trends in health care costs, and discusses the effect of the Balanced Budget Act of 1997, managed care industry consolidation, and changing professional prerogatives of physicians. There is expanded information on nursing and allied health functions. For students of health care and related professions. Sultz is affiliated with the State University of New York-Buffalo. Young teaches social and preventive medicine at the same institution. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Rating

3 Stars from Doody

Product Details

• Table of Contents

Table of Contents