SpringerBriefs in Health Care Management and Economics – serie

This Briefs Series book illustrates in depth a concept of healthcare management engineering and its domain for hospital and clinic operations. Predictive and analytic decision-making power of management engineering methodology is systematically compared to traditional management reasoning by applying both side by side to analyze 26 concrete operational management problems adapted from hospital and clinic practice. The problem types include: clinic, bed and operating rooms capacity; patient flow; staffing and scheduling; resource allocation and optimization; forecasting of patient volumes and seasonal variability; business intelligence and data mining; and game theory application for allocating cost savings between cooperating providers.Detailed examples of applications are provided for quantitative methods such as discrete event simulation, queuing analytic theory, linear and probabilistic optimization, forecasting of a time series, principal component decomposition of a data set and cluster analysis, and the Shapley value for fair gain sharing between cooperating participants. A summary of some fundamental management engineering principles is provided.The goal of the book is to help to bridge the gap in mutual understanding and communication between management engineering professionals and hospital and clinic administrators. The book is intended primarily for hospital/clinic leadership who are in charge of making managerial decisions. This book can also serve as a compendium of introductory problems/projects for graduate students in Healthcare Management and Administration, as well as for MBA programs with an emphasis in Healthcare.

Appointment Planning in Outpatient Clinics and Diagnostic Facilities provides a concise overview of the medical and mathematical aspects of appointment planning in healthcare. This SpringerBrief specifically focuses on outpatient clinics and diagnostic facilities. It begins by introducing the topic from a medical perspective, discussing the kinds of clinics and facilities that are out there, while exploring the appointment systems they use and the problems they face. Next, the mathematical aspects of appointment planning are examined, including Markov decision modelling, queueing theory, etc. Subsequently the book addresses implementation issues that may arise, whether they be technical, medical or cultural. Finally Appointment Planning in Outpatient Clinics and Diagnostic Facilities provides an outlook on the appointment systems of the future and what they will require as a consequence of current and future developments in the medical sector.

This book offers a practical introduction to healthcare analytics that does not require a background in data science or statistics. It presents the basics of data, analytics and tools and includes multiple examples of their applications in the field. The book also identifies practical challenges that fuel the need for analytics in healthcare as well as the solutions to address these problems. In the healthcare field, professionals have access to vast amount of data in the form of staff records, electronic patient record, clinical findings, diagnosis, prescription drug, medical imaging procedure, mobile health, resources available, etc. Managing the data and analyzing it to properly understand it and use it to make well-informed decisions can be a challenge for managers and health care professionals. A new generation of applications, sometimes referred to as end-user analytics or self-serve analytics, are specifically designed for non-technical users such as managers and business professionals. The ability to use these increasingly accessible tools with the abundant data requires a basic understanding of the core concepts of data, analytics, and interpretation of outcomes. This book is a resource for such individuals to demystify and learn the basics of data management and analytics for healthcare, while also looking towards future directions in the field.

This book provides practical applications of statistical and mathematical concepts to resolve common issues in hospital management.

This book explores in depth the phenomenon of user innovation in healthcare. In particular, the book sheds light on patient innovation, whereby patients and/or caregivers proactively develop and diffuse new products and services that provide health and quality of life benefits by addressing gaps in existing market offerings. The aim is to clarify the key characteristics of these innovative processes and to offer practitioners and policymakers tangible bottom-up evidence, solutions, and ideas that will assist in improving health systems, organizations, and practices. A number of important and interesting research questions are addressed, casting light on the types of products and services that tend to be developed by patient innovators, the typical profile of these innovators, the role played by firms, institutions, and health professionals, and the ways in which digital technologies support the dissemination of innovations among patient communities and within the industry. Beyond academic scholars and policymakers, the book will be of high value for students on master’s programs in both medical sciences and business and economics.

This book explores the impact of Generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) on the value co-creation process within inter-organizational networks, providing theoretical and practical perspectives on value creation in networks and on technological diffusion. Specifically, the author examines Precision Medicine (PM) networks in Italy, where technology is crucial in sharing and analyzing clinical data. By adopting an ecosystem perspective, Generative AI can enhance healthcare efficiency by increasing the speed and accuracy of diagnosis and treatment, and foster collaborative networking, as real-time data sharing facilitates streamlined communication among healthcare professionals, ensuring multidisciplinary patient care. Its analytical and predictive capabilities also enable personalized and tailored therapies by anticipating patients’ treatment needs. The book proposes a conceptual framework for mapping the critical stages of the value co-creation process and identifies the enablers and barriers of Generative AI within such networks. This book is a valuable resource for scholars, researchers, academics, professionals, and policymakers interested in the development of more resilient and value-driven healthcare networks.

This book focuses on the innovative and more critical management approach adopted in the PA (Public Administration) in order to identify and describe the main models and instruments to economically evaluate the decision making process in accordance to the specific conditions such as efficiency, effectiveness, cost and equity. The manuscript pays special attention to this sector by identifying, investigating and applying the main evaluation models (logic and methods) of the decision making process, in particular in terms of investment decisions. In the recent decades, with reference to PA, several managerial approaches have been developed from a business management perspective. These managerial approaches differ in terms of variables analyzed, such as the role of governance or the specific logics and mechanisms applied, but all of them have a common goal, which is the improvement of efficiency, effectiveness, economic and equitable decision making and operations in the PA. This book investigates the different mentioned frameworks adopting a wider and integrated analysis perspective on the evaluation of investments in the health care system.

This book creates a value proposition in geriatric care - a promise of value to be delivered to improve care and to provide specific benefits to healthcare systems.  It describes strategies and understanding of the incentives, barriers encountered in promoting changes in the healthcare systems, and discusses numerous examples and outcomes.  Drawn from many fields such as medicine and science, sociology, politics, business and economics, the book helps guide the introduction of geriatric principles into mainstream medical care with the goal of improving the care and quality of life of older persons in all healthcare systems.

This book reports cutting-edge cases of emerging health technologies. Some health care fields are experiencing paradigmatic shifts because of robotic technologies and the new relationships that they create in r-Health (r-Curing and r-Caring) activities. The book explores emerging health care technologies such as image-guided surgical robotics, pharmacy robots, new visualisation methods (3D, 4D & ″5D″) and home telehealth management systems and their acceptance in the workplace but also, more generally, their special role in business and society. These technologies allow health care professionals to effectively reach far beyond the current service offerings, providing new methods for communication, diagnosis, and treatment. The relocation of certain knowledge areas from physicians to patients in self-care management or the reconfiguration of health care expertise from one health profession to another are examples of topics developed in this book. The book describes the emerging relocation of innovative visual knowledge and expertise within health care organisations and beyond, such as in the patient’s home environment.