Bioethics has been the leading area of ethical focus and concern in the hospital industry. This focus on clinical operations and performance dominates the field of health care ethics. Much less attention has been paid to administrative ethics dealing with management concerns and overall organizational culture. This study examines what forces, both internal and external, cause hospital chief exe...

In 1974, approximately 28.4 million active workers participating in almost 52,000 health plans on their jobs were covered by in-hospital health insurance benefits. A survey of these plans, conducted for the Social Security Administration by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, revealed that not all workers are automatically entitled to benefits on the first day they report for work. More than three-...

Non-Hispanic whites are significantly more likely to have health insurance coverage than most racial/ethnic minorities, and this differential grew during the 1990s. Similarly, wealthier Americans are more likely to have health insurance than the poor, and this difference also grew over the 1990s. This paper examines the role of provider competition in increasing these disparities in insurance c...

Approximately 330 000 out-of-hospital cardiac arrests (OHCAs) occur annually in the United States; in essence, there are nearly 1000 OHCA events each day.1 However, despite the presence of extensive emergency medical response systems (especially in heavily populated regions) and aggressive steps by both professional organizations and private industry to enhance public awareness of the magnitude...

The need for long term parenteral nutrition is no longer in itself adequate justification for keeping a child in hospital. With the development of both the nutritional support industry and hospital outreach services, parenteral nutrition at home has become a practical option. The necessary organisation and supervision remain complex, however, so that home parenteral nutrition (HPN) is best coor...

The push for value-driven healthcare has resulted in numerous calls for increased transparency and accountability across the healthcare industry. This paper provides an a priori perspective to perioperative process transparency and accountability within a hospital environment by describing, examining, and discussing case-study research across a hospital’s perioperative and auxiliary services. B...

The purpose of this research is to begin to identify the necessary types of input and environmental conditions for US hospitals where the Deming management method would provide the best societal outcomes (the optimal mix of patient and provider satisfaction with both shortand longterm financial viability). The Deming management method has delivered exceptional outcomes in different societies an...

With an increasing emphasis on tight glycemic control in diabetes care, innovative devices could play a big role, but diabetes is a deceptively complex market. Innovative companies need to differentiate themselves, yet not venture too far outside existing industry dynamics. As the first real−time continuous glucose monitors come to market, a handful of start−ups hopes to be ready for the second...

This paper presents a case study on an innovative Midwifery Refresher Program in the context of current midwifery workforce issues. The refresher program was developed specifically as a recruitment strategy to address a staffing crisis at the Mater Misericordiae Mothers' Hospital, a busy tertiary maternity hospital in Brisbane, Australia. Features of the program that contributed to its success ...

The Clinton Administration has implied that short-run failures to control health care costs may cause a reexamination of wage and price controls as elements of comprehensive health care reform. The most recent imposition of mandatory wage and price controls was the Economic Stabilization Program (ESP) of the early 1970s. We analyze trends in hospitals' economic behavior and utilization before, ...