Cases in Health Services Management

Health services management students need more preparation than ever to solve the problems they will confront in the increasingly complex health services environment. Cases in Health Services Management, Fifth Edition, presents 28 challenging cases (10 new to this edition) that address pivotal issues students will encounter as administrators and managers: quality improvement, strategic planning, ethical dilemmas, organizational dynamics, cost–benefit analyses, resource utilization, and more. Students can hone their management acumen with real-life case examples like these: When an advance in medical technology significantly improves the outcomes of a common procedure but triples its cost, can the needs of patients, hospitals, and insurers be reconciled? After a collapse in leadership in the face of unrest among internal staff and external service providers, can a new hospital administrator implement a culture change to introduce greater transparency and a self-management learning style? A hospital merger requires consolidation of duplicated services and careful scrutiny of a premier burn center whose continuation or closure has financial, community, and organizational ramifications. Deciding whether to remove an entrenched founder and CEO from a national 400-facility, multi-level long-term care health system that is in a downward financial spiral poses significant challenges to its board of directors. Providing an exceptional framework for decision making and debate, Cases in Health Services Management is an outstanding casebook for capstone and issues courses and a valuable supplement for health services courses in organization and management, strategic planning, finance, and marketing. Instructor's Manual for Cases in Health Services Management, Fifth Edition Penetrating case analyses and outcome descriptions will help instructors guide students to understanding the issues central to each case. This CD-ROM is available at no charge with adoption of the text.

Dr. Rakich received his master of business administration from the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor and his doctorate from Saint Louis University. His university instructional areas are strategic management and health services administration. During his 36 year teaching career, Dr. Rakich has coauthored 3 books in 12 editions, 40 journal articles (including those in Health Care Financing Review, Health Care Management Review, Hospital & Health Services Administration, Journal of Health & Society Policy, and Hospital Topics), and 35 conference proceedings and professional papers. Professor Rakich has been awarded a postdoctoral federal faculty fellowship with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and has served on the board of trustees of a home health agency and health systems agency. During academic sabbaticals, he served an administrative residency at Summa Health System and conducted on-site research of the Canadian health care system. Professor Rakich is a member of the Academy of Management, the Association for Health Services Research, and the Decision Sciences Institute. He holds personal membership in the Association of University Programs in Health Administration and is a faculty affiliate of the American College of Healthcare Executives. Professor Rakich is Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Management and Health Services Administration at the University of Akron, where he taught from 1972 to 1999. During that period he held administrative positions as Director of Graduate Programs in Business, Director of Executive Development Programs, and Coordinator of the MBA-Health Services Administration option program

Beaufort B. Longest, Jr., is the M. Allen Pond Professor and Director of the Health Policy Institute in the Department of Health Policy and Management at the Graduate School of Public Health at the University of Pittsburgh. Professor Longest holds a Ph.D. from Georgia State University. He is a fellow of the American College of Healthcare Executives and holds memberships in the Academy of Management, AcademyHealth, American Public Health Association, and the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management. He is an elected member of the Beta Gamma Sigma Honor Society in Business as well as of the Delta Omega Honor Society in Public Health. His research has led to numerous peer-reviewed articles published in respected national and international journals. He has authored or co-authored 10 books and 30 chapters. Professor Longestâ??s current research and scholarship address corporate citizenship, policy making, and governance and management in health settings. His work in these areas has underpinned his most recent books, Managing Health Programs and Projects and Health Policymaking in the United States. Longest consults with health care organizations and systems, universities, associations, and government agencies on health policy and management