Main textbook
Kieran Walshe and Judith Smith, Healthcare Management, 2nd ed., Maidenhead, Berkshire, UK: Open University Press, 2011.
About the book: The book is just as much about health and health care policy as it is about public health and health care management. Since health and health care management to such a large extent either is health policy (especially in the case of public health management) or is an implementation of health policy (especially in Europe), this is not surprising. The two have to be seen as closely connected and also overlapping phenomena. In this course emphasis is laid on management, and for that reason the chapters in the book that primarily are policy chapters should be looked upon as optional, but recommended, readings. The required readings are:
Chs. 2, 14-17, 19-27. (298 pages)
Optional, but recommended, readings: chs. 9-12. (88 pages)
To strengthen the managerial part of the syllabus some management articles have been added to the syllabus. They are all required readings. They have either been uploaded on Fronter or can be down-loaded from the Internet.
Batalden, Paul B. and Stoltz, Patricia K, "A Framework for Contiual Improvement of Health Care," Journal on Quality Improvement,Vol. 19, No. 10, 1993, pp. 424-445.
About the article: In this article some of the Deming philosophy on quality management (see Walton below) is applied in a health care setting. Batalden, a physician with Norwegian ancestry, has for several decades been a leading quality improvement spokesperson. He is professor emeritus at Dartmouth Medical School. Batalden has been active as an adviser both in Sweden and Norway. Deming’s, as Batalden’s, approach is explicitly opposed to the technical approach pioneered by Frederick Taylor (1911), but does also contain elements 11 from modern technical thinking, like in its emphasis on statistically based quality control. (Posted on Fronter.)
Berg, Ole, Clinical and Managerial Cycles: A Strategy for Understanding Health Care Management, unpublished manuscript (ca. 15 pages). (To be uploaded on Fronter.)
Christensen, Clayton M., Richard M.J. Bohmer, and John Kenagy, "Will Disruptive Innovations Cure Health Care?" Harvard Business Review, Vol. 78, No. 5, 2000, pp. 102-117.
About the article: Clayton Christensen is one of Harvard Business School’s most famous professors. In this interesting article, written with two physicians (one of whom, Bohmer, is a central person in the Boston-area health management community), he shows how technological innovations can upend the organization of health care – and perhaps our way of thinking about change in health care.
Edmonstone, John, "Clinical leadership: the elephant in the room," International Journal of Health Planning and Management, Vol. 24, No. 4, 2008, pp 290-305. (16 pp.)
About the article: Edmonstone discusses the relationship between the traditional form of management, which he calls clinical leadership, and the newer form of management, called general management. The latter was introduced in the British NHS (hospitals) following the 1983 Griffiths report and created what Edmonstone calls a "disconnected hierarchy" (the administrative vs. the medical hierarchy), especially in hospitals. The British Griffiths reform has since become a symbol of the introduction of the managerial revolution in health care, a revolution that has gone farthest in Britain and the Nordic countries, but which is very obvious also in many parts of the U.S. health care system (called "managed care" in the 1990s) and is also increasingly felt on the European continent. The author of this article discusses a theme that is very important in today’s health care, but especially hospital management, discussion.
Finkler, Steven A., David M. Ward and Thad Calabrese, "Introduction to Health Care Accounting and Financial Management", ch. 1 in Accounting Fundamentals for Health Care Management, Jones & Bartlett Learning, 2013, pp. 1-7.
About the chapter: This is the introductory chapter in an extensive and much-used book in health care accouting and financial management. The chapter is non-technical and pedagogically well structured.
Gapenski, Louis C., "Introduction to healthcare financial management," chapter 1 (pp. 3-40) in his Healthcare Finance, Health Administration Press, 5th ed., 2011
About this chapter: This is the introductory chapter to this (probably most-used) text in health care accounting and financial management in the United States. It refers exclusively to the American context and is thus of varying relevance to this course. It is, however, well worth reading. It deepens the reader’s understanding of the logic of financial management, and its relations to law and organization. For this course this chapter is to be looked upon as optional reading. 12
Hallowell, Edward M., "Overloaded Circuits. Why Smart People Underperform," Harvard Business Review, January 2005, pp. 55-62.
About the article: It is an article that particularly deals with the stresses of leading and managing: How they originate and how they can be handled. Hallowell is a psychiatrist.
McDaniel, Reuben R., Jr., "Strategic Leadership: A View From Quantum and Chaos Theories," Health Care Management Review, Vol. 22, No. 1, 1997, pp. 21-37. (Uploaded on Fronter)
About the article: McDaniel (1936-2016) had a background in mechanical engineering and higher education (pedagogy) before going into management and information science. He was a professor at McCombs School of Business at the University of Texas, Austin. In this article he applies some of his thoughts on physics and information science to the challenges of health care organization. He not only taught "quantum management", but also practiced it, partly through an affiliation with the medical scool of UT. Drawing especially on quantum physics and complexity science he criticizes the more standard, "Newtonian" (or technical) approaches to management and argues for a more systemically, and in many ways humanistically, oriented form of (health care) management. This is an interesting article written by one of McCombs most celebrated (former) teachers, and one of the university’s very few African-American professors.
McDaniel, Reuben R., Jr., "Management Strategies for Complex Adaptive Systems," Performance Improvement Quarterly, Vol. 20, No. 2, 2007, pp. 21-42. (Posted on Fronter.)
About the article: This article should be read in conjunction with the above-listed article. In this article he spells out more generally what complexity science is and what its management implications are.
Mintzberg, Henry and Sholom Glouberman, "Managing the Care of Health and the Cure of Disease—Part II: Integration", Health Care Management Review, Vol. 26, 2001, pp. 70-84.
About the article: The authors discuss a key challenge facing a health care system that is increasingly differentiating, that of coordination and integration. Whereas most commentators recommend hierarchic forms of coordination, Mintzberg and Glouberman discuss how collaborative forms of coordination can be utilized too. The article reflects Mintzberg’s preference for "artistic" over "technical" management; he talks of craft managing. Henry Mintzberg, based in Montreal, Canada and associated with McGill University has for several decades been one of the most well-known management theorists.
Porter, Michael E. and Thomas H. Lee, "The Strategy That Will Fix Health Care", Harvard Business Review, Oct. 2013, pp. 50-70.
About the article: Written in an assertive American style the authors present the blueprint for a radical reinvention of the organization (especially) and financing of health care. The authors claim that their blueprint is cross-nationally relevant. Michael Porter is one of Harvard Business School’s most famous professors. Thomas Lee is a physician and Harvard professor and a key person in the medical community in the Boston area.
Porter, Michael E., Erika A. Pabo, and Thomas H. Lee, "Redesigning Primary Care: A Strategic Vision To Improve Value By Organizing Around Patients’ Needs," Health Affairs, Vol. 32, No. 3, 2013, pp. 516–525. 13
About the article: Written by Michael Porter and two (partly) practicing physicians this article details some of the implications of the general program for reinventing health care presented in the Porter & Lee article (above) for the organization and financing of primary care.
Ryan, Richard M and Edward L. Deci, "Intrinsic and Extrinsic Motivations: Classic Definitions and New Directions," Contemporary Educational Psychology, Vol. 25, 2000, pp. 54-67. (Posted on Fronter.)
About the article: This article is not primarily management oriented, but is theoretically sophisticated and of obvious management relevance. The authors make a plea for, at least a partly, humanistic – i.e. intrinsic – approach to motivation (and management).
Shanks, Nancy H. and Amy Dore, "Management and Motivation", ch. 3 in Sharon B. Buchbinder and Nancy H. Shanks, eds., Introduction to Health Care Management, Burlington, MA: Jones & Bartlett, 2012 (17 pp.). The version from the first edition of the book (2007), written by Nancy Shanks alone, is almost identical with the new one, and may be used instead. (Optional reading.)
About the chapter: The authors give a broad overview of the most relevant theories of motivation and management, both the more "technical" and more humanistic-artistic ones. They do not, however, tailor their discussion to the concerns of health (care) managers.
Quinn, James Brian, Philip Anderson and Sydney Finkelstein, "Managing Professional Intellect: Making the Most of the Best," Harvard Business Review, Vol. 74, No. 2, 1996, pp. 71-80.
About the article: This is an article about the management of highly intelligent people. The authors do not refer to a special type of organizations, but use of course examples from organizations where intellectuals play a great role, like consultancy firms, law firms some financial institutions and health care organizations. They do not discuss, however, challenges associated with managing an organization that has both intellectual elite type employees and other types of personnel, like many health organizations. When reading this article try to "translate" it into a health care setting! Quinn, with his 1992 book, Intelligent Enterprise, is one of the founders of what is now often referred to as knowledge management. Quinn (1929-2013) was for manye years one of the star professors at Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College.
Walton, Mary, Deming on Management at Work,New York: G. P. Putnam & Sons, 1990, chs. 1 and 3. (47 pages) (Posted on Fronter.)
About these chapters: Walton presents the essentials of the Deming approach to quality management and uses Hospital Corporation of America as a case to illustrate her, and Deming’s, points.
(Total number of pages, required readings: W&S: 298 + articles: 266 = 564 pp.; optional readings: W&S: 88 + article: 17 = 105 pp.)