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Academic Health Centers: Leading Change in the 21st Century
by Institute of Medicine of the National AcademiesAcademic health centers are currently facing enormous changes that will impact their roles in education, research, and patient care. The aging and diversity of the population will create new health care needs and demands, while rapid advances in technology will fundamentally alter the health care systems' capabilities. Pressures on health care costs, growth of the uninsured, and evidence of quality problems in health care will create a challenging environment that demands change. "Academic Health Centers explores how AHCs will need to redirect each of their roles so they are able to meet the burgeoning challenges of health care and to improve the health of the people they serve. The methods and approaches used in preparing health professionals, the relationship among the variety of their research programs, and the design of clinical care will all need examination if they are to meet the changing demands of the coming decades. Policymakers and payers will need to create incentives to support innovation and change in AHCs. In response, AHCs will need to increase the level of coordination and integration across their roles and the individual organizations that comprise the AHC if they are to successfully undertake the types of changes needed. Academic Health Centers lays out a strategy to start a continuing and long-term process of change.
Academic Pain Medicine: A Practical Guide to Rotations, Fellowship, and Beyond
by Yury Khelemsky Anuj Malhotra Karina GritsenkoThis comprehensive text is the definitive academic pain medicine resource for medical students, residents and fellows. Acting as both an introduction and continued reference for various levels of training, this guide provides practitioners with up-to-date academic standards. In order to comprehensively meet the need for such a contemporary text—treatment options, types of pain management, and variables affecting specific conditions are thoroughly examined across 48 chapters. Categories of pain conditions include orofacial, neuropathic, visceral, neck, acute, muscle and myofascial, chronic urogenital and pelvic, acute, and regional. Written by renowned experts in the field, each chapter is supplemented with high-quality color figures, tables and images that provide the reader with a fully immersive educational experience. Academic Pain Medicine: A Practical Guide to Rotations, Fellowship, and Beyond is an unprecedented contribution to the literature that addresses the wide-spread requisite for a practical guide to pain medicine within the academic environment.
Academic Promotion for Clinicians: A Practical Guide to Academic Promotion and Tenure in Medical Schools
by Anne WallingThis book is a practical guide to the appointment, promotion, and tenure (APT) process for clinical faculty members employed by medical schools. The number of clinical faculty members in US medical schools has increased exponentially in the last two decades. At the same time, faculty career tracks and promotion requirements have changed dramatically and medical schools have introduced multiple non-tenure career tracks. Currently, only about 25% of the approximately 150,000 members of clinical departments. This book provides insights and recommendations on career planning and academic promotion for clinical faculty members. It also addresses much of the "mythology" surrounding the APT process and demonstrates how academic promotion should be used as a career-building process rather than a daunting high-risk event. Topics include concepts and processes within academic promotion; navigating the academic promotion and tenure process; and managing the outcome of the APT application. Academic Promotion for Clinicians is a valuable resource for clinical medicine faculty members as they engage in and successfully handle the challenges in the APT process and thus realize their career goals.
Academic Promotion for Clinicians: A Practical Guide to Promotion and Tenure in Medical Schools
by Anne WallingThis book is a practical guide to the appointment, promotion, and tenure (APT) process for clinical faculty members of medical schools. It provides insights and recommendations on career planning and academic promotion for clinical faculty members. It also addresses much of the “mythology” surrounding the APT process and demonstrates how academic promotion should be approached as a career-building process rather than a daunting high-risk event. Topics discussed in the first edition include concepts and processes within academic promotion; navigating the academic promotion and tenure process; and managing the outcome of the APT application. Academic Promotion for Clinicians is a valuable resource for clinical medicine faculty members as they engage in and successfully address the challenges of the APT process to realize their career goals. The biggest change for the new edition is the incorporation of the growing literature and many recent developments regarding career development and promotion for non-tenure track faculty including new chapters addressing the specific concerns of the largest groups, clinician-educators and those heavily involved in research or patient care. Since the previous edition, the faculty of US medical schools has grown by 25% to over 200,000 individuals, 75% of whom are physicians. Only 21% of faculty members have achieved professorial rank. This book aims to encourage interest in academic promotion and provide practical assistance to the 96,000 assistant professors and 42,000 associate professors in US medical schools. Women and members of groups historically underrepresented in medicine (URM) face unique issues in navigating academic promotion systems. These issues have received greater attention from institutions and in the literature since the first edition. The revision includes a summary of national and institutional efforts to make academic careers and promotion more desirable and feasible for women and faculty members from URM and other disadvantaged backgrounds, including discussion of outcomes and future directions for such programs. The sections on faculty perceptions and attitudes towards promotion have also been heavily revised to include consideration of the influence of important events and trends since the previous edition such as the COVID pandemic, transition of the last cohort of baby boomers into retirement age groups, and developments in literature on professional identity and career motivation. The update also addresses the influence of the growing “feminization of medicine” on academic careers. Since 2013, the number of female faculty members has risen from 61,000 (38% of total) to 85,000 (44%). Currently, 59% of instructors, 48% of assistant professors, and 41% of associate professors are women. The accelerating “flight from tenure” in clinical departments is also addressed. Updated data and graphs demonstrate the dramatic changes in tenure-related appointments of clinicians and the substantial differences across specialties. In 2023 only 19% of fulltime clinical faculty hold tenure-related appointments but this ranged from around 11% in family medicine to over 33% in public health and preventive medicine. The new edition expands the discussion of the implications of these trends on expectations for career development, and on the criteria and systems for academic promotion for clinicians. Finally, the book provides updated information on external and internal changes in the medical school environment that impact faculty careers and academic promotion. These include significant revision of the process and requirements for LCME accreditation; the demands and consequence of the “medical education revolution” and widespread curricular reforms; growing significance of team science, translational, applied and other non-traditional research; financial and other pressures on academic health centers; the continuing blurring of the distinctions between academic and other clinical institutions; and initiatives to recruit and retain non-traditio
Academic Theories of Generation in the Renaissance: The Contemporaries and Successors of Jean Fernel (1497-1558) (History, Philosophy and Theory of the Life Sciences #22)
by Benjamin Goldberg Linda Deer RichardsonThis volume deals with philosophically grounded theories of animal generation as found in two different traditions: one, deriving primarily from Aristotelian natural philosophy and specifically from his Generation of Animals; and another, deriving from two related medical traditions, the Hippocratic and the Galenic. The book contains a classification and critique of works that touch on the history of embryology and animal generation written before 1980. It also contains translations of key sections of the works on which it is focused. It looks at two different scholarly communities: the physicians (medici) and philosophers (philosophi), that share a set of textual resources and philosophical lineages, as well as a shared problem (explaining animal generation), but that nevertheless have different concerns and commitments. The book demonstrates how those working in these two traditions not only shared a common philosophical background in the arts curricula of the universities, but were in constant intercourse with each other. This book presents a test case of how scholarly communities differentiate themselves from each other through methods of argument, empirical investigation, and textual interpretations. It is all the more interesting because the two communities under investigation have so much in common and yet, in the end, are distinct in a number of important ways.
Academic Writing and Referencing for your Nursing Degree (Critical Study Skills)
by Jane Bottomley Steven PryjmachukInvaluable jargon-free guide for anyone doing a nursing degree, providing study support and helping you to improve your academic writing and referencing skills.Academic Writing and Referencing for your Nursing Degree provides you with a sound knowledge and understanding of: what constitutes good academic writing in nursing a range of strategies for writing successful essays and reports the importance of clarity and coherence in your writing about nursing how to improve your academic style, grammar and punctuation, and formatting and presentation referencing conventions in the field of nursing, and of how to avoid plagiarism. If you are embarking on a university nursing degree, the books in our Critical Study Skills for Nursing series will help you acquire and develop the knowledge, skills and strategies you need to achieve your goals. They provide support in all areas important for university study, including institutional and disciplinary policy and practice, self-management, and research and communication. Tasks and activities are designed to foster aspects of learning which are valued in higher education, including learner autonomy and critical thinking, and to guide you towards reflective practice in your study and work life.
Acanthamoeba Keratitis: Diagnosis and Treatment
by Xuguang SunThis book provides the concise descriptions of the basic and clinical knowledge about Acanthamoba keratitis, including characteristics of pathogen, risk factors, clinical manifestations, diagnosis and treatment with abundant figure illustrations and typical cases to ophthalmological practitioners and researchers. <p><p> Acanthamoeba pathogen is widely distributed in the nature. However, Acanthamoeba keratitis is generally considered as a type of sight-threatening keratitis that is difficult to treat. At early stage Acanthamoeba keratitis usually shows atypical clinical manifestations, that are often misdiagnosed as viral or bacterial keratitis. Moreover, there are not approved topical anti-amoebicdrugs available up to now. We hope ophthalmological practitioners can obtain a comprehensive understanding of this infection through this book.
Acaricides Resistance in Ticks: A Global Problem
by Sachin Kumar Anil Kumar Sharma Raquel Cossío-Bayúgar Estefan Miranda-Miranda Ashok Kumar ChaubeyThis book discusses the significance of the chemical acaricides resistance in ticks as a global problem. Resistance is the ability of a tick population to survive and reproduce in the presence of a pesticide that would otherwise be lethal. This resistance threatens the efficacy of a range of acaricides used to control tick populations and consequently, has a negative impact on the effectiveness of various pest management strategies. This resistance is caused by the selection of resistant tick genotypes and enhanced metabolic detoxification. To address this problem the book explores an integrated approach that is needed to identify and manage tick populations that are resistant to acaricides, as well as identify and develop novel acaricides that are effective against resistant tick species populations. It describes the complex issues associated with this phenomenon using cutting edge advancement in Bioinformatics and Bioinformation Discovery. The chapters provide current information pertaining to the types of protein-protein complexes (homodimers, heterodimers, multimer complexes) in context with various specific and sensitive biological functions. The significance of such complex formation in human biology in the light of molecular evolution is also highlighted using several examples. The book serves as a valuable resource for students, academicians and researchers studying about tick resistance.
Accelerated Path to Cures
by Josep Bassaganya-RieraAccelerated Path to Cures provides a transformative perspective on the power of combining advanced computational technologies, modeling, bioinformatics and machine learning approaches with nonclinical and clinical experimentation to accelerate drug development. <P><P> This book discusses the application of advanced modeling technologies, from target identification and validation to nonclinical studies in animals to Phase 1-3 human clinical trials and post-approval monitoring, as alternative models of drug development. As a case of successful integration of computational modeling and drug development, we discuss the development of oral small molecule therapeutics for inflammatory bowel disease, from the application of docking studies to screening new chemical entities to the development of next-generation in silico human clinical trials from large-scale clinical data. <P>Additionally, this book illustrates how modeling techniques, machine learning, and informatics can be utilized effectively at each stage of drug development to advance the progress towards predictive, preventive, personalized, precision medicine, and thus provide a successful framework for Path to Cures.
Accelerating Diagnostics in a Time of Crisis: The Response to COVID-19 and a Roadmap for Future Pandemics
by Steven C. Schachter Wade E. BoltonThose who responded to the COVID-19 pandemic have now had the opportunity to reflect on lessons learned, and in this science and data-rich book, those reflections are presented as a behind-the-scenes chronology of events and discoveries that occurred in COVID-19's wake. Offering a rubric for a future pandemic response, each chapter is written by experts, with their unique perspectives, experience, and learnings woven into visual roadmaps throughout the book. These roadmaps serve as a scaffolding upon which future healthcare leaders can build when creating, implementing and executing operational strategies in the face of future infectious disease outbreaks. Written for both lay and scientific audiences and featuring case studies which give clinical insight into the unique bond between COVID patients, their loved ones and their healthcare providers, this important book allows readers to leverage the knowledge of experts to improve the outcomes of future pandemics.
Accelerating Health Care Transformation with Lean and Innovation: The Virginia Mason Experience
by Paul E. PlsekAccelerating Health Care Transformation with Lean and Innovation: The Virginia Mason Experience describes how Virginia Mason Medical Center (VMMC) has systematically integrated innovative structures, methods, and cultural practices into its implementation of Lean. Describing how an organization can create a strategy and build a culture of innovation and learning, it supplies concrete examples that show how Lean and innovation can work hand-in-hand to improve and transform value streams. It also explains how to use the voices of patients and their families to drive improvement and innovation.
Accelerating Progress in Obesity Prevention: Solving the Weight of the Nation
by Committee on Accelerating Progress in Obesity PreventionOne-third of adults are now obese, and children's obesity rates have climbed from 5 to 17 percent in the past 30 years. The causes of the nation's obesity epidemic are multi-factorial, having much more to do with the absence of sidewalks and the limited availability of healthy and affordable foods than a lack of personal responsibility. The broad societal changes that are needed to prevent obesity will inevitably affect activity and eating environments and settings for all ages. Many aspects of the obesity problem have been identified and discussed; however, there has not been complete agreement on what needs to be done to accelerate progress. Accelerating Progress in Obesity Prevention reviews previous studies and their recommendations and presents five key recommendations to accelerate meaningful change on a societal level during the next decade. The report suggests recommendations and strategies that, independently, can accelerate progress, but urges a systems approach of many strategies working in concert to maximize progress in accelerating obesity prevention. The recommendations in Accelerating Progress in Obesity Prevention include major reforms in access to and opportunities for physical activity; widespread reductions in the availability of unhealthy foods and beverages and increases in access to healthier options at affordable, competitive prices; an overhaul of the messages that surround Americans through marketing and education with respect to physical activity and food consumption; expansion of the obesity prevention support structure provided by health care providers, insurers, and employers; and schools as a major national focal point for obesity prevention. The report calls on all individuals, organizations, agencies, and sectors that do or can influence physical activity and nutrition environments to assess and begin to act on their potential roles as leaders in obesity prevention.
Accelerating the Development of Biomarkers for Drug Safety: Workshop Summary
by Institute of Medicine of the National AcademiesBiomarkers can be defined as indicators of any biologic state, and they are central to the future of medicine. As the cost of developing drugs has risen in recent years, reducing the number of new drugs approved for use, biomarker development may be a way to cut costs, enhance safety, and provide a more focused and rational pathway to drug development. On October 24, 2008, the IOM's Forum on Drug Discovery, Development, and Translation held "Assessing and Accelerating Development of Biomarkers for Drug Safety," a one-day workshop, summarized in this volume, on the value of biomarkers in helping to determine drug safety during development.
Accelerating the Development of New Drugs and Diagnostics: Workshop Summary
by Steve OlsonAdvances in technologies and knowledge are creating new avenues for research and opportunities for the discovery and clinical development of innovative therapies and diagnostics. However, despite these opportunities, only a small fraction of investigational products are successfully developed into cures and therapies that can be accessed by patients. One response to the ever-widening gap between the number and promise of basic scientific discoveries and the translation of those discoveries into therapies is a renewed emphasis on collaborative approaches among federal agencies, academia, and industry, all directed at the advancement of the drug development enterprise. The newly developed Cures Acceleration Network (CAN)-a part of the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS) within the National Institutes of Health (NIH)-has the potential to catalyze widespread changes in NCATS, NIH, and the drug development ecosystem in general. On June 4-5, 2012, the IOM Forum on Drug Discovery, Development, and Translation held, at the request of NCATS, a workshop-bringing together members of federal government agencies, the private sector, academia, and advocacy groups-to explore options and opportunities in the implementation of CAN. Accelerating the Development of New Drugs and Diagnostics: Maximizing the Impact of the Cures Acceleration Network: Workshop Summary summarizes the workshop.
Accelerating the Education Sector Response to HIV
by Donald Bundy Anthi Patrikios Lesley Drake Changu Mannathoko Stella Manda Bachir Sarr Andy TembonThe education sector plays a key "external" role in preventing and reducing the stigma surrounding HIV/AIDS. It also plays an important "internal" role in providing access to care, treatment, and support for teachers and education staff, a group that in many countries represents more than 60 percent of the public sector workforce. The education sector can also have a critically important positive effect on the future: Even in the worst-affected countries, most schoolchildren are not infected. For these children, there is a chance to live lives free from AIDS if they can be educated on the knowledge and values that can protect them as they grow up. The authors of 'Accelerating the Education Sector Response to HIV' explore the experiences of education sectors across Sub-Saharan Africa as they scale up their responses to HIV/AIDS within the Accelerate Initiative Working Group, established in 2002 by the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) Inter-Agency Task Team on Education. This book demonstrates that leadership by the ministries of education and commitment from key development partners are crucial for mobilizing activities and that full participation of all stakeholders is required for effective implementation. This book summarizes the experiences of technical Focal Points from the 37 ministries of education in Sub-Saharan Africa, which are represented on the sub-regional networks for HIV and Education. These experiences prove that the education sector response can play a crucially important role in the multisectoral national responses to this epidemic.
Acceleration of Biomedical Image Processing with Dataflow on FPGAs
by Frederik Grüll Udo KebschullShort compute times are crucial for timely diagnostics in biomedical applications, but lead to a high demand in computing for new and improved imaging techniques. In this book reconfigurable computing with FPGAs is discussed as an alternative to multi-core processing and graphics card accelerators. Instead of adjusting the application to the hardware, FPGAs allow the hardware to also be adjusted to the problem. Acceleration of Biomedical Image Processing with Dataflow on FPGAs covers the transformation of image processing algorithms towards a system of deep pipelines that can be executed with very high parallelism. The transformation process is discussed from initial design decisions to working implementations. Two example applications from stochastic localization microscopy and electron tomography illustrate the approach further. Topics discussed in the book include:• Reconfigurable hardware• Dataflow computing• Image processing• Application acceleration
Accelerator Technology: Applications in Science, Medicine, and Industry (Particle Acceleration and Detection)
by Sören MöllerThis book explores the physics, technology and applications of particle accelerators. It illustrates the interconnections between applications and basic physical principles, enabling readers to better understand current and upcoming technologies and see beyond the paradigmatic borders of the individual fields. The reader will discover why accelerators are no longer just toys for scientists, but have also become modern and efficient nuclear workhorses. The book starts with an introduction to the relevant technologies and radiation safety aspects of accelerating electrons and ions from several keV to roughly 250 MeV. It subsequently describes the physics behind the interactions of these particle beams with matter. Mathematical descriptions and state-of-the-art computer models of energy-loss and nuclear interactions between the particle beams and targets round out the physics coverage. On this basis, the book then presents the most important accelerator applications in science, medicine, and industry, explaining and comparing more than 20 major application fields, encompassing semiconductors, cancer treatment, and space exploration. Despite the disparate fields involved, this book demonstrates how the same essential technology and physics connects all of these applications.
Acceptable Risk in Biomedical Research: European Perspectives (International Library of Ethics, Law, and the New Medicine #50)
by Sigmund SimonsenThis book is the first major work that addresses a core question in biomedical research: the question of acceptable risk. The acceptable level of risks is regulated by the requirement of proportionality in biomedical research law, which state that the risk and burden to the participant must be in proportion to potential benefits to the participant, society or science. This investigation addresses research on healthy volunteers, children, vulnerable subjects, and includes placebo controlled clinical trials. It represents a major contribution towards clarifying the most central, but also the most controversial and complex issue in biomedical research law and bioethics. The EU Clinical Trial Directive, the Council of Europe's Oviedo Convention (and its Additional Protocol), and national regulation in member states are covered. It is a relevant work for lawyers and ethicists, and the practical approach makes a valuable tool for researchers and members of research ethics committees supervising biomedical research.
Acceptance & Commitment Therapy: Theorie en praktijk
by Jacqueline A-TjakACT staat voor Acceptance and Commitment Therapy. ACT is een nieuwe vorm voor cognitieve gedragstherapie die snel populair geworden is in Nederland en in opkomst is in België. Dit boek is bedoeld als opstapje voor hulpverleners die geen, of maar weinig ervaring hebben met ACT. De theorie achter ACT en de filosofie van waaruit ACT wordt bedreven worden beknopt en in begrijpelijke taal uitgelegd. Er is uitgebreid aandacht voor de therapeutische relatie, iets wat binnen ACT niet slechts als randvoorwaarde, maar als een essentieel element wordt opgevat. Het overgrote deel van het boek wordt in beslag genomen door ACT in de praktijk: beschreven wordt hoe je ACT kunt toepassen bij depressie, angst, chronische pijn, psychose, trauma en complexe problematiek.
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy for Insomnia: A Session-By-Session Guide
by Renatha El Rafihi-FerreiraThis book presents a complete guide for psychotherapists to apply a protocol based on Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) to the treatment of insomnia. It describes an evidence-based treatment program for insomnia based on the theoretical model of ACT which allows clinicians to both apply it as monotherapy or in conjunction with behavioral components that are associated with better insomnia treatment outcomes, such as stimulus control and sleep restriction. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Insomnia (CBT-I) is the current psychotherapy of choice to treat insomnia, but there are patients who have difficulties in adhering to some therapeutic elements and others who are refractory to this modality. Therefore, new therapeutic modalities are needed. ACT applied to insomnia has shown effective results, presenting another way to deal with the cognitive components involved in sleep difficulties. Acceptance and Commitment Therapy for Insomnia: A Session-By-Session Guide aims to bridge the gap between the available evidence on the use of ACT for insomnia and clinical practice by providing, in one single volume, all the necessary tools for clinical psychologists, psychiatrists, psychotherapists and mental health professionals interested in applying this innovative evidence-based approach to the treatment of insomnia. “This innovative and well-written volume offers therapists a practical, evidence-based alternative to traditional Cognitive Behavioral Therapy or medication-dependent treatments for insomnia. It’s important to have such choices, and Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) has unusual strengths in focusing on the whole person and their overall quality of life, instead of the features of sleep disruption alone. Using a carefully crafted, session-by-session approach, it equips professionals with the tools to adapt ACT to individual patient needs, making a meaningful difference in their journey towards restful sleep and greater well-being. Highly recommended”. Steven C. Hayes, Ph.D. Foundation Professor of Psychology Emeritus, University of Nevada, Reno. Originator of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy.
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, Second Edition
by Steven C. Hayes Kirk D. StrosahlSince the original publication of this seminal work, acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) has come into its own as a widely practiced approach to helping people change. This book provides the definitive statement of ACT--from conceptual and empirical foundations to clinical techniques written by its originators. ACT is based on the idea that psychological rigidity is a root cause of a wide range of clinical problems. The authors describe effective, innovative ways to cultivate psychological flexibility by detecting and targeting six key processes: defusion, acceptance, attention to the present moment, self-awareness, values, and committed action. Sample therapeutic exercises and patient-therapist dialogues are integrated throughout. New to This Edition, Reflects tremendous advances in ACT clinical applications, theory building, and research. Psychological flexibility is now the central organizing focus. Expanded coverage of mindfulness, the therapeutic relationship, relational learning, and case formulation. Restructured to be more clinician friendly and accessible; focuses on the moment-by-moment process of therapy.
Access to Assisted Reproductive Technologies: The Case of France and Belgium (Fertility, Reproduction and Sexuality: Social and Cultural Perspectives #43)
by Jennifer MerchantDespite France and Belgium sharing and interacting constantly with similar culinary tastes, music and pop culture, access to Assisted Reproductive Technologies are strikingly different. Discrimination written into French law acutely contrasts with non-discriminatory access to ART in Belgium. The contributors of this volume are social scientists from France, Belgium, England and the United States, representing different disciplines: law, political science, philosophy, sociology and anthropology. Each author has attempted, through the prism of their specialties, to demonstrate and analyse how and why this striking difference in access to ART exists.
Access to Behavioral Health Care for Geographically Remote Service Members and Dependents in the U.S.
by Dionne Barnes-Proby Grant N. Marshall Yashodhara Rana Ryan Andrew Brown Lisa Miyashiro Coreen Farris Harold Alan Pincus Phoenix Voorhies Karen Chan Osilla Joshua Breslau Teague Ruder Katherine Pfrommer David M. AdamsonConcerns about access to behavioral health care for military service members and their dependents living in geographically remote locations prompted research into how many in this population are remote and the effects of this distance on their use of behavioral health care. The authors conducted geospatial and longitudinal analyses to answer these questions and reviewed current policies and programs to determine barriers and possible solutions.
Access to Health (10th edition)
by Rebecca J. DonatelleDonatelle (public health, Oregon State University) challenges undergraduate students to think globally as they consider health risks and personal health decisions. New opportunities for self-assessment and behavior change are offered in this edition, in the form of behavior change contracts and boxes on tattoos, safer sex, and club drugs. There is expanded information on the mind-body connection and alternative medicine, as well as new coverage of contraceptive devices and weight management. Annotation (c)2003 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)
Access to Health Care
by Martin Gulliford Myfanwy MorganTo what extent can we have truly universal, comprehensive and timely health services, equally available to all? Access to Health Care considers the meaning of 'access' in health care and examines the theoretical issues that underpin these questions. Contributors draw on a range of disciplinary perspectives to investigate key aspects of access, including:· geographical accessibility of services· socio-economic equity of access· patients' help-seeking behaviour· organisational problems and access· methods for evaluating access.Access is considered in both a UK and international context. The book includes chapters on contrasting health policies in the United States and European Union. Access to Health Care provides both health care researchers as well as health professionals, managers and policy analysts, with a clear and wide-ranging overview of topical and controversial questions in health policy and health services organization and delivery.