Insurance for all won't solve US healthcare problems

Online, June 2, 2010 (Newswire.com) - The current problems of access, affordability and quality in the US healthcare system won't be solved by providing health insurance to all. The editors of the new book Engineering the System of Healthcare Delivery (ISBN: 978-1-60750-532-7) propose an engineering approach to healthcare. In this publication by IOS Press, editors William B. Rouse and Denis A. Cortese and a team of highly regarded thought leaders in the field explain their vision.

The US healthcare system has many excellent components; strong scientific input, extraordinary technology for diagnosis and treatment, dedicated staff and top-class facilities among them. But the system has evolved haphazardly over time and although it has not failed entirely, the authors argue that like any system where attention is paid to individual components at the expense of the system as a whole, it can never hope to succeed. Above all, they point out that the US system does not provide high value healthcare; it has the highest costs in the world and yet many other countries have lower infant mortality rates and better life expectancy.

Covering a wide range of subjects including: healthcare costs and economics, barriers to change, integrated health systems, electronic records and computer-based patient support as well as patient safety and palliative and chronic care, this book will be of interest to all those involved in healthcare provision whose goal is affordable care to promote healthy, high quality lives.

About the Book
Engineering the System of Healthcare Delivery
Volume 153 Studies in Health Technology and Informatics
Edited by: W.B. Rouse and D.A. Cortese
May 2010, 492 pp., hardcover
ISBN: 978-1-60750-532-7
Price: US$210 / €145

Available in print and e-book format.

Table of Contents

Issues
• Seeking care as a system / D.M. Berwick and E. Luo
• Patient safety / P. Carayon and K.E. Wood
• Aging: Adding complexity, requiring skills / C.K. Cassel, M. Johnston-Fleece and S. Reddy
• Palliative and end of life care / R. Stroebel and T. Moynihan
• US health care costs: The crushing burden / H. Darling

Information
• Engineering information technology for actionable information and better health / D.E. Detmer
• Electronic health records / W.W. Stead
• Evidence-based medicine / J.M. McGinnis
• Transforming healthcare through patient empowerment / L. Lenert

Incentives
• Health economics / G.R. Wilensky
• Pay for value / R. Smoldt
• Reform incentives to create a demand for health system reengineering / A. Enthoven

Engineering Approaches
• Systems engineering and management / W.B. Rouse and W.D. Compton
• Operations research / W.P. Pierskalla
• Engineering healthcare as a service system / J.M. Tien and
P.J. Goldschmidt-Clermont
• Process engineering: A necessary step to a better public health system / D.A. Ross
• Engineering responses to pandemics / R.C. Larson and K.R. Nigmatulina
• Understanding and enhancing the dental delivery system / P.M. Griffin and S.O. Griffin

Perspectives
• Integrated health systems / S.M. Shortell and R.K. McCurdy
• Academic health centers / F. Sanfilippo
• Government, health and system transformation / J.E. Perlin and
K.A. Baggett

Conclusions
• Barriers to change in engineering the system of health care delivery /
J.F. Saxton and M.M.E. Johns
• Prospects for change / D.A. Cortese and W.B. Rouse

About the Editors
Prof. Dr. Denis A. Cortese is President and Chief Executive Officer of Mayo Clinic, chair of the Mayo Clinic Board of Governors and a member of the Board of Trustees. A graduate of Temple University Medical School, he completed his residency training in Internal Medicine and Pulmonary Diseases at Mayo Clinic. After service in the U.S. Navy, he joined the Mayo Clinic staff in late 1976. He is a professor of medicine and a former director of the Pulmonary Disease subspecialty training program.

Prof. Dr. William B. Rouse is Professor at the School of Industrial and Systems Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology and holds a joint appointment within the College of Computing. He also serves as Executive Director of the university-wide Tennenbaum Institute for Enterprise Transformation. Rouse has over thirty years of experience in research, education, management, marketing, and engineering related to individual and organizational performance, decision support systems, and information systems. His expertise includes individual and organizational decision-making and problem solving, as well as design of organizations and information systems.

About Studies in Health Technology and Informatics
This book series was started in 1990 to promote research conducted under the auspices of the EC programs' Advanced Informatics in Medicine (AIM) and Biomedical and Health Research (BHR) bioengineering branch. A driving aspect of international health informatics is that telecommunication technology, rehabilitative technology, intelligent home technology and many other components are moving together and form one integrated world of information and communication media.

The complete series has been accepted in MEDLINE, Scopus, EMCare and Cinahl Database. Volumes from 2005 onwards are available online.