This former senior VP of CIGNA explained how health insurers make promises they have no intention of keeping, how they flout regulations designed to protect consumers, and how they skew political debate with multibillion-dollar PR campaigns designed to spread disinformation.Potter had walked away from a six-figure salary and two decades as an insurance executive because he could no longer abide the routine practices of an industry where the needs of sick and suffering Americans take a backseat to the bottom line. The last straw: when he visited a rural health clinic and saw hundreds of people standing in line in the rain to receive treatment in stalls built for livestock.In Deadly Spin, Potter takes readers behind the scenes to show how a huge chunk of our absurd healthcare spending actually bankrolls a propaganda campaign and lobbying effort focused on protecting one thing: profits. Whatever the fate of the current health care legislation, it makes no attempt to change that fundamental problem. Potter shows how relentless PR assaults play an insidious role in our political process anywhere that corporate profits are at stake-from climate change to defense policy. Deadly Spin tells us why-and how-we must fight back.

    People are living longer than ever, and medicine has made dying more complicated, more drawn out and more removed from the experience of most people. Death is partitioned off to hospital rooms, separated from our daily lives. Most of us find ourselves at a loss when death approaches. We don't know how to die well. Rob Moll recovers the deeply Christian practice of dying well. For centuries Christians have prepared for the "good death" with particular rituals and spiritual disciplines that have directed the actions of both the living and the dying. In this well-researched and pastorally sensitive book, Moll provides insight into death and dying issues with in-person reporting and interviews with hospice workers, doctors, nurses, bioethicists, family members and spiritual caregivers. He weighs in on bioethical and medical issues and gives guidance for those who care for the dying as well as for those who grieve. This book is a gentle companion for all who face death, whether one's own or that of a loved one. Christians can have confidence that because death is not the end, preparing to die helps us truly live.

    In 2001, Virginia Mason Medical Center, an integrated healthcare delivery system in Seattle, Washington set out to achieve its compelling vision to become The Quality Leader and to fulfill that vision, adopted the Toyota Production System as its management method.Transforming Health Care: Virginia Mason Medical Center's Pursuit of the Perfect Patient Experience takes you on the journey of of Virginia Mason Medical Center's pursuit of the perfect patient experience through the application of lean principles, tools, and methodology. Over the last several years Virginia Mason has become internationally known for its journey towards perfection by applying the Toyota Production System to healthcare. The book takes readers step by step through Virginia Mason's journey as it seeks to provide perfection to its customer - the patient. This book shows you how you use this system to transform your own organization.

    While spirituality has been generally recognized as an essential dimension of palliative care, uniformity of spiritual care practice has been lacking across health care settings due to factors like varying understandings and definitions of spirituality, lack of resources and practical tools, and limited professional education and training in spiritual care.In order to address these shortcomings, more than forty spiritual and palliative care experts gathered for a national conference to discuss guidelines for incorporating spirituality into palliative care. Their consensus findings form the basis of Making Health Care Whole. This important new resource provides much-needed definitions and charts a common language for addressing spiritual care across the disciplines of medicine, nursing, social work, chaplaincy, psychology, and other groups. It presents models of spiritual care that are broad and inclusive, and provides tools for screening, assessment, care planning, and interventions. This book also advocates a team approach to spiritual care, and specifies the roles of each professional on the team. Serving as both a scholarly review of the field as well as a practical resource with specific recommendations to improve spiritual care in clinical practice, Making Health Care Whole will benefit hospices and palliative care programs in hospitals, home care services, and long-term care services. It will also be a valuable addition to the curriculum at seminaries, schools of theology, and medical and nursing schools.

    This book explores ways to enhance nursing education, allow nurses to pracitice to the full extent of their education and training, provide opportunities for nurses to serve in leadership positions, and improve data collection methods for workforce planning and policy making.

    Paris has written an honest, balanced presentation of the ways in which psychiatric drugs are evaluated and prescribed. He highlights the complexity of the task, the limits of what is known and the mixed picture that research often produces. His conclusions are refreshing because they are built from an even-handed, pragmatic assessment of the empirical evidence. The result is a stimulating look at the world of treatments for emotional disorders that acknowledges the usefulness of both biological and psychosocial explanations where appropriate. His recommendations provide helpful roadmaps for patients, practitioners and researchers alike. The book is sure to serve as a welcome catalyst for the continuing debates about which treatments are likely to produce the best outcomes. --Roger P. Greenberg, Ph.D. Distinguished Professor and Head, Psychology Division Dept. of Psychiatry & Behavioral Science SUNY Upstate Medical University, NY, USA The message of this book is that psychiatrists have some very good drugs, but can expect bad results when they are over-used, prescribed outside of evidence-based indications, or given to the wrong patients. While acknowledging that many current agents are highly effective and have revolutionized the treatment of certain disorders, Joel Paris criticizes their use outside of an evidence base. Too many patients are either over-medicated or are misdiagnosed to justify aggressive treatment. Dr. Paris calls for more government funding of clinical trials to establish, without bias, the effectiveness of these agents. He has written this book for practitioners and trainees to show that scientific evidence supports a more cautious and conservative approach to drug therapy.After describing the history of psychopharmacology, including its early successes, Dr. Paris reviews the relationship between psychiatry and the pharmaceutical industry. This problem has received considerable popular attention in recent years and Dr. Paris documents initiatives to increase transparency and decrease the influence of pharmaceutical marketing on diagnosis and prescribing habits.Dr Paris then examines some major controversies. One is the fact that newer drugs have not been shown to be superior to older agents. Another is that while the number of prescriptions for antidepressants has increased dramatically, meta-analyses show that their value is more limited than previously believed. Still another is the widespread prescription of mood stabilizers and antipsychotic drugs for patients, including children and adolescents, who do not have bipolar illness. Polypharmacy is an especially contentious area: very few drug combinations have been tested in clinical trials, yet many patients end up on a cocktail of powerful drugs, each with its own side effects.Dr Paris briefly considers alternatives to pharmacology and again calls for more clinical trials of these approaches. He also discusses the current trend to medicalizing what many would describe as normal distress and states succinctly: Some things in life are worth being upset about.