The subjects covered in the book include research methods, legal aspects of health care systems and organizations, evaluation instruments for measuring health care effectiveness and quality, understanding and implementation of quality management theories, practice guidelines for health care professionals and administration of managed care programs. It also tackles the issues of economic policy, practice strategies for clinical practice, public health care systems and rural development. There is also a brief note on risk management covered wherein the author expatiates on the probable consequences and dangers of failure to implement desired policies. On the concluding page, the book provides a link to where readers can go for more information. This is a good book for all those intending to take my managed care and the industrial organization of health care quiz for me.
Dr. Hammonds is a key member of the Association of American Physicians and he has written several famous books on the management of health care including Take My Managed Care and the Industrial Organization of Health Care. These are some of his credentials and it is obvious that he knows what he is talking about. The topics he addresses in these books are very important and relevant for today’s world. He is a very influential personality in the field of managed care and this is apparent from the testimonials on his many websites that he promotes and helps provide for the betterment of all kinds of medical service delivery institutions.
For those who are not familiar with the concepts that he discusses in his books, I will quickly summarize some of them for you in this review. Dr. Hammonds believes that the concept of managed care is becoming obsolete because of the growth of bureaucracy and profit driven pharmaceutical companies. He believes that the control of healthcare needs to be shifted from the profit-driven pharmaceutical companies to those who will provide care at the community level. According to him, physicians no longer have the power to decide who their patients are and what treatment they will receive. They will still have to follow the rules of the medical industry, but they will be the ones making the final decisions.
So, he argues that we need to re-educate people in health care management to put their interest before the profit of the pharmaceutical companies. His book, take my managed care and the industrial organization of health care is the first step toward this. It is an interesting read and a quick read, since it covers so much in such a short amount of time.
As someone who suffered with chronic diseases for most of my life until my retirement, I found the book to be very interesting. It takes a bit of psychology to understand how people become ill, why and how they deal with it as well as what the alternative is. I liked the part on managing your appointments with a personal health care coach. You don’t realize just how important these can be until you see them in action.
This book also touches on the issue of health insurance and prescription drug prices. The author seems to think that we spend far too much money on prescription drugs, which is costing the American economy billions of dollars a year. The question is why? He does answer that one of the reasons is the lack of education about health and the fact that people simply don’t care or are too lazy to read up on the subject. He also points out that there are billions of dollars being spent on marketing drugs to increase profits of the pharmaceutical companies.
In this take my managed care and the industrial organization of health care quiz for me, the first thing you learn is that you need to have an optimum level of health care in order to stay healthy and to perform your best at work. Second, you learn how to keep those with whom you interact at their optimal health condition. Finally, you learn how to manage health insurance so that you can get the most benefit at the lowest cost. By taking the time to go over this great little book, I learned something about health care that not many people seem to know.