Understanding Health Services
No single discipline can provide a full account of how and why health care is the way it is. This book provides you with a series of conceptual frameworks which help to unravel the apparent complexity that confronts the inexperienced observer. It demonstrates the need for contributions from medicine, sociology, economics, history and epidemiology. It also shows the necessity of considering health care at three key levels: individual patients and their experiences; health care organisations such as health centres and hospitals; and regional and national institutions such as governments and health insurance bodies.
The book examines:
◗ Inputs to health services
◗ Processes of care
◗ Outcomes
◗ Organization of services
◗ Improving the quality of health care
Nick Black is Professor of Health Services Research and Reinhold Gruen is an Honorary Senior Lecturer in Health Services Management at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine.