A cure for what ails medical care

Call it the American disease. The symptoms: unchecked health care spending and too many uninsured. The remedy: introducing more marketplace logic into the system.     

The coming health care shakeout

No matter what the Clintons do, this mammoth industry--even bigger than you think--is in for turmoil. A safe prediction: Plenty of people will lose their jobs.     

The real action in health care

It's not taking place in the White House or Congress. The show to watch is the boisterous, free-market affair, precipitated by employers fed up with rising medical costs, and carried on by insurers and HMOs scrapping for turf.     

Time-driven activity-based costing for health care provider supply chains

ABSTRACT

Health care providers currently operate in an environment of complex supply chains and increasing costs where approximately one third of hospital operating expenses are related to supplies. It is pertinent that health care providers have a clear understanding of their supply chain process costs. Knowing how these costs are driven and where opportunities for cost reduction exist can support health care provider supply chain (HPSC) efficiency. In this article, we present a time-driven activity-based costing (TDABC) supply chain cost methodology for health care providers. A TDABC management system can provide health care providers with valuable product and process supply chain cost information by investigating logistics activities, resource consumption, and time drivers. Our HPSC TDABC methodology is demonstrated in a case study conducted for the supply chain department of a 200-bed, not-for-profit hospital.     

Telecommunications technology in rural health care

Areas of low population density present special problems with respect to the delivery of health services. In this article, an overview is given of some technological approaches to solving these problems. The author's remarks are based on several years of experience of managing a research programme in health care telecommunications, and, more recently, a review of selected Rural Health Initiative and Health underserved Rural Areas projects that utilize a combination of innovations involving telecommunications and computer technologies.     

Accessing antecedents and outcomes of RFID implementation in health care

This research first conceptualizes, develops, and validates four constructs for studying RFID in health care, including Drivers (Internal and External), Implementation Level (Clinical Focus and Administrative Focus), Barriers (Cost Issues, Lack of Understanding, Technical Issues, and Privacy and Security Concerns), and Benefits (Patient Care, Productivity, Security and Safety, Asset Management, and Communication). Data for the study were collected from 88 health care organizations and the measurement scales were validated using structural equation modeling. Second, a framework is developed to discuss the causal relationships among the above mentioned constructs. It is found that Internal Drivers are positively related to Implementation Level, which in turn is positively related to Benefits and Performance. In addition, Barriers are found to be positively related to Implementation Level, which is in contrast to the originally proposed negative relationship. The research also compares perception differences regarding RFID implementation among the non-implementers, future implementers, and current implementers of RFID. It is found that both future implementers and current implementers consider RFID barriers to be lower and benefits to be higher compared to the non-implementers. This paper ends with our research implications, limitations and future research.     

The development of contract research organisations in Sweden: health care,privatisation and neo‐liberalism

This paper examines changes in local working conditions instigated by the development of contract research organisations in pharmaceutical development. These developments are seen as occurring in the context of Sweden's ‘circumscribed neoliberalization’. It is shown how staff remain ambivalent about the shifts of location and identity that these developments imply.     

试析国有煤炭企业产权制度改革

建立现代企业制度是我国经济体制改革的一场攻坚战,它要求以理顺和重组产权关系为基础,以建立企业法人制度为核心,塑造市场经济和市场竞争的主体。由于我国经济体制改革选择的是渐进式道路,国有煤炭企