Epidemiology and the Delivery of Health Care Services: Methods and Applications
Author: Denise M Olesk
Oleske, Denise M(Rush Medical Coll of Rush Univ)
The contributors represent the specialties of health systems management and health administration. Most are from academic medical centers in the U.S. Institutions prominently represented include Rush Univ in Chicago and Medical Coll of Virginia.
Robert A. Hiatt
This compact text of 200 pages first briefly reviews the epidemiologic perspective, the use of epidemiologic data, and descriptive epidemiologic measures. Seven chapters follow on topics of relevance to healthcare managers describing how epidemiologic methods relates to each of them. These are the application of epidemiology to strategic planning, the evaluation of healthcare system performance, technology assessment, control of communicable diseases, quality management, systems management, and the formulation of public policy. The traditional focus for healthcare managers has been on internal operations. However, the advent of managed care calls for health systems to take on the responsibility for the health and well-being of defined populations, and managers must now broaden their perspective to a more population-based approach. This text aims to illustrate how epidemiology provides one of the critical tools to do this. The audience is intended to be first-year graduate students and healthcare managers who need ""the basic knowledge and skills required for managing population-based health care."" It provides an introduction to epidemiologic methods and their application for those with no background in the field. A nice feature of this text is the four or five case studies that follow each chapter. These are designed to have the student (or reader) use what they have gleaned from the chapter in practical examples. In addition to suggested answers to these case study questions, a useful glossary is included. The book is adequately indexed. This book fills a unique gap in the interface between epidemiology and health administration. As managed care and the population-basedperspective become more of a central feature of the healthcare system in this country, this interface becomes a critical area for instruction. The chapters vary in their success with how well they demonstrate the application of epidemiology to their respective topics, but overall the book achieves its aim as a text for students at the graduate level.
Doody Review Services
Reviewer: Robert McLean, PhD (Creighton Univ School of Pharmacy & Allied Health Professions)
Description: This is one of the few books in the important field of managerial epidemiology, the application of epidemiological tools to management decisions in healthcare. It consists of 14 chapters on methods and applications. New to the second edition is a substantial list of web-based resources for those who would make the applications.
Purpose: The purpose is to provide graduate students in health administration and practicing administrators with the tools they need to plan and deliver services to defined populations.
Audience: The book will be most useful to graduate students in health administration. It will find some readers among professional epidemiologists who are curious about the application of their field to management. Practicing managers, most of whom completed their training before managerial epidemiology entered the curriculum, will also find it useful.
Features: The 14 chapters cover both methods and a variety of applications. These include population-based decision making, quality improvement, and economic analysis (cost-benefit and cost-effectiveness). The directory of web-based resources is extremely useful.
Assessment: This is a substantial improvement over the earlier, pioneering edition. The quality of the writing, given the diverse group of chapter authors, is uneven. One may quibble with some omissions from the directory of web-based resources (the commercial resources listed do not include the "Sachs" web page, for example), and the references to some of the chapters omit some classic sources. It is, nonetheless, an excellent contribution to a very small literature on its subject.
Booknews
A text for a first-year graduate course and a reference for practicing health-care managers. Explains the basic epidemiological measures and their use in planning and monitoring the health of populations, and how the various types of study designs and statistical methods can be used to evaluate health systems, programs, technologies, and policies. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)
Rating
3 Stars from Doody
Table of Contents:
| Ch. 1 | An Epidemiologic Perspective for Health Care Management | 1 |
| Ch. 2 | Measurement Issues in the Use of Epidemiologic Data | 21 |
| Ch. 3 | Descriptive Epidemiologic Measures | 33 |
| Ch. 4 | Strategic Planning, an Essential Management Tool for Health Care Organizations, and Its Epidemiologic Basis | 53 |
| Ch. 5 | Evaluating Health Care Programs and Systems: An Epidemiologic Perspective | 79 |
| Ch. 6 | Control of Transmissible Diseases in Health Care Organizations | 101 |
| Ch. 7 | Technology Assessment | 123 |
| Ch. 8 | Epidemiology and Health Care Quality Management | 149 |
| Ch. 9 | Managing Health Care Systems from an Epidemiologic Perspective | 171 |
| Ch. 10 | Epidemiology and the Public Policy Process | 187 |
| Suggested Answers to Selected Case Studies Questions | 205 | |
| Glossary | 221 | |
| Index | 229 |
Book review: Delegating Powers or Escaping the Black Hole
Macroeconomics in Emerging Markets
Author: Peter J Montiel
This accessible textbook in macroeconomics is designed specifically for emerging economies. It provides a textbook model that upper-level undergraduate students use to understand economic events in their countries, and separate analysis of the key macroeconomic problem areas that these economies have confronted over the last two decades. These problem areas include fiscal deficits, financial sector reform, and exchange rate policies. The book differs from development textbooks in that it contains up-to-date macroeconomics.
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