This is bad for patients, bad for doctors, and bad for business.In The Long Fix, physician and health care CEO Vivian S. Lee, MD, cuts to the heart of the health care crisis. The problem with the way medicine is practiced, she explains, is not so much who’s paying, it’s what we are paying for. Insurers, employers, the government, and individuals pay for every procedure, prescription, and lab test, whether or not it makes us better—and that is both backward and dangerous.Dr. Lee proposes turning the way we receive care completely inside out. When doctors, hospitals, and pharmaceutical companies are paid to keep people healthy, care improves and costs decrease. Lee shares inspiring examples of how this has been done, from physicians’ practices that prioritize preventative care, to hospitals that adapt lessons from manufacturing plants to make them safer, to health care organizations that share online how much care costs and how well each physician is caring for patients.Using clear and compelling language, Dr. Lee paints a picture that is both realistic and optimistic. It may not be a quick fix, but her concrete action plan for reform—for employers and other payers, patients, clinicians, and policy makers—can reinvent health care, and create a less costly, more efficient, and healthier system for all.

    Mark Plaster takes readers beyond the ambulance bay doors into the stranger-than-fiction world of the Emergency Department. By turns heart-warming and gut-wrenching, "Night Shift" chronicles the ebb and flow of human life, in all of its unvarnished glory, as it passes through the doors of the ED.

    But that picture is vastly incomplete. In this eye-opening book, physician Rishi Manchanda says that our health may depend even more on our social and environmental settings than it does on our most cutting-edge medical care. Manchanda argues that that the future of our health care depends on growing a new generation of health care practitioners. We need doctors who look upstream for the sources of our problems, rather than simply go for quick-hit symptomatic relief. These upstreamists, as he calls them, are doctors and nurses on the frontlines of medicine who see that health (like sickness) is more than a chemical equation that can be balanced with pills and procedures administered within clinic walls. They see that health begins in our everyday lives, in the places where we live, work, eat, and play. If our high-cost, sick-care system is to become a high-value, health care system, the upstreamists will show us the way. (Description taken from TED Library: http://www.ted.com/pages/tedbooks_lib...)

    Constantly changing policies. Increasing bureaucratic regulations. These are just a few of the challenges health care providers face every day; challenges that limit the ability to provide excellent patient care. Marcus' insights will give health care providers new and essential strategies to rediscover the magic and compassion between caregiver and patient.

    Now with twice the number of stories of stupidity coming to the hospital, emergency room and operating room. DR Payne has been taking care of patients for over 18 years in places from Alaska to the American South and she has seen her share of Stupid. Feel a little less stupid today after you read this book. Sections include: Stupid in Action Stupid in Word Stupid in Thought Stupid Baby Names Notable Tattoos A Final Thought

    

    First Year Nurse places the wisdom and warnings of hundreds of experienced nurses right at your fingertips. You'll learn all about how to start off on the right foot; plan and prioritize; communicate with your colleagues; cope with challenging patients; keep your energy up (and stress down); and set a course for professional growth. Best of all, you'll be inspired by the compassion, insight, and enthusiasm you'll find on every page of this charming, helpful book. Features:Valuable advice and personal accounts from experienced nursesTips on subjects from time management to avoiding burnout

    In the style of his first book, Andy recalls each event from the detailed documentation recorded at the time, each account written in a way that puts the reader right there next to him so that you live the events in real-time, hear the dialogue between paramedics, patient, their loved ones and other healthcare professionals as it would have been, and share in Andy’s thought processes during each of the ten very different situations he encounters.The term ‘The Dark Side’ describes the frontline emergency aspect of the Ambulance Service, since paramedics frequently experience sombre situations. In ‘The Dark Side, Part 2’ you will share in some truly traumatic, tragic and tearful events involving a seemingly vibrant, healthy young patient, a prison inmate, the victims of an horrific car crash, heart attacks, a frightening epileptic fit, the alarming effects of an allergic reaction, and what can happen when under-strain doctors prescribe the wrong medication. But there’s still room for lighthearted moments and a taste of the sometimes dark humour that allows paramedics to continually deal with events most of us would find too horrific. The detail in the descriptions of the care given to each patient on-scene by Andy and his colleagues will have you marvelling at the ability of these healthcare professionals to work at such speed of thought, buying enough time to deliver a patient into the specialist hands of hospital care and often full recovery. Of course there are inevitably also those times when tears of hope turn to tears of despair for loved ones. You cannot feel that pain until it happens to you, but this book will bring you mighty close to it at times.

    It is a self-help guide with full explanation about how to successfully abort and prevent all migraines. The book also provides a full explanation of the cause of migraines from a physiological, biological, and genetics perspective. This book is an extended edition of the "Fighting the Migraine Epidemic: How to Treat and Prevent Migraines without Medicines. An Insider's View" book published and now discontinued. The book is laid out in five parts: Part I: migraineurs who read the 1st edition of the book comment and introduction Part II: quick guide to get rid of an ongoing migraine Part III: the heart of the book, describing the physiology and biology or migraines, who is susceptible to migraines and why. Also includes all prodrome types, all triggers, and detailed analysis on how triggers can be cancelled. Part IV: a more complex explanation of migraine-cause specifically for doctors, scientists, and migraineurs more interested in the genetics and bio-physiology of migraines. It also contains a part titled “Drugs of Shame” describing the 30 most often prescribed medicines for migraine pain prevention, their side effects, and FDA warnings. Part V: a huge citation list of over 800 citations of academic literature. Each academic article adds a little bit of information to complete the whole picture of migraines. In this book I pull together information from many fields of science and connect the dots to help the reader to conclude the same thing I did: migraine is preventable and completely treatable without the use of any medicines.

    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.

    Author Mike Glenn's mom didn’t want to be sick, and while she couldn’t overcome the devastation of disease, she wasn’t going down without a fight.   She fought the illness, denying its presence. She fought the doctors, “Who were these idiots anyway?” And she fought him, “How come you think you’re in charge now?”  Coffee with Mom is a book about a mom's fight with dementia and the struggle of a son who wanted to help but didn’t always know how. Most of their conversations—and sometimes battles—happened during morning coffee.   This book isn’t about knowing all of the answers. It is one son’s journey with his mom—a mom with Alzheimer’s and a son who did the best he could, and who wrote this story in hopes that you’ll find a few laughs for your journey, realize you’re not alone, and find the courage to do the best you can.   So, pour yourself a cup of coffee, and join us on the journey. You’ll find yourself in the laughter and tears of not knowing what to do next and making a decision that you hope works out, knowing it’s the best you can do in the moment.   In the end, that’s all that matters. “Do the best you can” is all love requires.

    Now a paramedic field chief, Bomben looks back on thirty years of service in It's Not the Trauma, It's the Drama.The twenty true stories Bomben relates are unique—all told from the point of view of a woman rising through traditionally male ranks. Bomben's tales range from funny to gory, from the dangers paramedics face to the history of a venerable old firehouse. Some, of course, are about saving lives. Others are about simply staying alive.From Bomben's first trauma call—the result of a drag race along city streets gone horribly wrong—to her eventual rise through the ranks, her tales shift seamlessly from humorous encounters to descriptions of injuries human beings shouldn't be able to endure. Through it all, It's Not the Trauma, It's the Drama offers a glimpse of the strain and risk experienced by Chicago Fire Department paramedics every day.

    Jerry Avorn has some sobering news. Drawing on more than twenty-five years of patient care, teaching, and research at Harvard Medical School, he shares his firsthand experience of the wide gap in our knowledge of the effectiveness of one medication as compared to another. In Powerful Medicines, he reminds us that every pill we take represents a delicate compromise between the promise of healing, the risk of side effects, and an increasingly daunting price. The stakes on each front grow higher every year as new drugs with impressive power, worrisome side effects, and troubling costs are introduced.This is a comprehensive behind-the-scenes look at issues that affect everyone: our shortage of data comparing the worth of similar drugs for the same condition; alarming lapses in the detection of lethal side effects; the underuse of life-saving medications; lavish marketing campaigns that influence what doctors prescribe; and the resulting upward spiral of costs that places vital drugs beyond the reach of many Americans.In this engagingly written book, Dr. Avorn asks questions that will interest every consumer: How can a product judged safe by the Food and Drug Administration turn out to have unexpectedly lethal side effects? Why has the nation’s drug bill been growing at nearly 20 percent per year? How can physicians and patients pick the best medication in its class? How do doctors actually make their prescribing decisions, and why do those decisions sometimes go wrong? Why do so many Americans suffer preventable illnesses and deaths that proper drug use could have averted? How can the nation gain control over its escalating drug budget without resorting to rationing or draconian governmental controls?Using clinical case histories taken from his own work as a practitioner, researcher, and advocate, Dr. Avorn demonstrates the impressive power of the well-conceived prescription as well as the debacles that can result when medications are misused. He describes an innovative program that employs the pharmaceutical industry’s own marketing techniques to reduce use of some of the most overprescribed and overpriced products. Powerful Medicines offers timely and practical advice on how the nation can improve its drug-approval process, and how patients can work with doctors to make sure their prescriptions are safe, effective, and as affordable as possible. This is a passionate and provocative call for action as well as a compelling work of clear-headed science.From the Hardcover edition.

    Using a unique systems approach, it brings together an extraordinary breadth of information into a highly accessible, easy-to-read text that clarifies the complexities of health care organization and finance, while presenting a solid overview of how the various components fit together.

    With an eye first and foremost on the bottom line rather than on the nation's health, each sector has for decades embraced cure over care, aiming to conquer disease rather than concentrate on the cultural and social factors that determine health. This decision Magee calls the "original sin" of our health system.Code Blue is a riveting, character-driven narrative that draws back the curtain on the giant industry that consumes one out of every five American dollars. Making clear for the first time the mechanisms, greed, and collusion by which our medical system was built over the last eight decades--and arguing persuasively and urgently for the necessity of a single-payer, multi-plan insurance arena of the kind enjoyed by every other major developed nation--Mike Magee gives us invaluable perspective and inspiration by which we can, indeed, reshape the future.