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With a rapidly growing population of older adults with chronic illness in US prisons, the number of people who die while incarcerated is increasing. Support for patients’ medical decision-making is a cornerstone of quality care for people at the end of life (EOL). This study aims to identify, describe, and analyze existing policies regarding EOL decision-making in U.S. Departments of Corrections.

This study performed an iterative content analysis on all available EOL decision-making policies in US state departments of corrections and the Federal Bureau of Prisons.

This study collected and reviewed available policies from 37 of 51 prison systems (73%). Some areas of commonality included the importance of establishing health-care proxies and how to transfer EOL decision documents, although policies differed in terms of which patients can complete advance care planning documents, and who can serve as their surrogate decision-makers.

Many prison systems have an opportunity to enhance their patient medical decision-making policies to bring them in line with community standard quality of care. In addition, this study was unable to locate policies regarding patient decision-making at the EOL in one quarter of US prison systems, suggesting there may be quality-of-care challenges around formalized approaches to documenting patient medical wishes in some of those prison systems.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first content analysis of EOL decision-making policies in US prison systems.

Ethical, legal and medical progress has been made in end‐of‐life care, addressing crucial issues in the application of principles to clinical cases. However, despite the progress, there are still unresolved issues concerning the scope and effectiveness of personal decision making and the proper use of last resort measures in terminal care. An analysis of the progress discloses both the advances and the problems still confronting patients and their families. From this perspective, one gains a better understanding of the reality of terminal care and areas that call for reform.

A historical analysis reveals the interrelation between moral and legal reasoning and their differences. It also discloses developments in the moral and legal realms that recognize rights of the patient with regard to treatment decisions. A critique of ethical and legal reasoning and medical practice pin‐points the salient problems.

There are still problems in the application of legal and ethical principles to specific cases. These problems are complicated by poor physician‐patient communication, the ineffective use of advance directives and the impact of the market economy on comprehensive palliative care. These call for reform to protect personal rights and dignity at the end of life.

A historical approach, too often lacking, promotes insight into the complexities of end‐of‐life care. An analysis flowing from such a perspective pin‐points not only the advances in ethical, legal and medical practice but also the flaws and inconsistencies that call for a more realistic approach in reasoning and practice.

This paper aims to first demonstrate the prevalence and methodological and theoretical limitations of approaches oriented towards either migrants entitlement or their access to health care; and, second, to demonstrate an alternative approach involving a conceptual and analytical framework that integrates these perspectives as levels of analysis within a holistic model.

The paper consists of three brief case studies each demonstrating particular difficulties in adopting either policy oriented “entitlement” approaches or practice driven orientations examining migrants access to health care. Each case study will examine briefly an aspect of the policy and legal frameworks within which health care is delivered to immigrants. The studies encompass the phenomenon of “hidden” immigrant children in Sweden, migrants crossing the Spanish border from North Africa, and asylum seekers in the UK.

The case studies form a basis for presenting an integrated model encompassing a multi‐level framework for examining the health care of migrant populations.

The international applicability of the model is discussed drawing further on the author's work as scientific advisor to the EU on immigrant health and as lead researcher in a four country EU study into refugee health and social care.

This paper briefly provides some thoughts on forward planning in end‐of‐life care, noting that there are good reasons for taking action with regard to our own demise. Provides an example of living will.

The purpose of this paper is to discuss how, using a futures studies perspective, marketing is uniquely positioned to address future challenges facing health-care service systems.

The futures studies perspective involves predicting probable, preferable and possible futures. Using digital and face-to-face data collection methods, health-care professionals, academics and patients were asked about their perspectives and expectations of health care’s future. Using grounded theory, responses were analyzed to a point of thematic saturation to expose the immediate probable future and a preferred future of health care.

Patients expressed a desire to participate in health-care delivery, impacting caregivers’ roles. Thus, co-creation of value in this context is contingent on the relationship among stakeholders: patients, patients’ families, caregivers and health-care organizations. Concordance, a type of value co-creation, is an effective way for physicians and patients to ameliorate health outcomes.

Although a more diverse sample would be ideal, insight from health-care professionals, academics and patients across global regions was obtained.

To achieve a preferred future in health care, practitioners should implement a three-pronged approach, which includes health promotion and prevention, appropriate use of technology in health care and concordance.

Using patients, health-care professionals and academics, this research broadens the concept of value co-creation in health care. Additionally, paths (i.e. promotion and prevention, technology use and concordance) to a preferred health-care future are uncovered.

Purpose – This chapter provides a reflective synopsis of the chapters in the volume and highlights the learning from the cases about the development of new orientations, design configurations, and learning mechanisms. It charts directions for further research and possible managerial actions.

Design – The chapters in this second volume of the book series “Organizing for Sustainable Effectiveness” capture a rich set of cases in which organizing for sustainable health care was the central focus. Each chapter illuminated the development of a distinct health care system in a unique cultural and national context, and had a special focus on reporting theoretically informed and rigorously explored knowledge to guide purposeful design and learning approaches. Collectively the chapters highlighted the processes, organization and design, system regulation, and continuous learning approaches in complex organizational and multi-organizational health care systems that enable focus on and advancement of economic, social, and ecological outcomes.

Findings – Several critical themes have emerged from the cases, and from the broader literature on health care transformation: the importance of purpose; the need to overcome fragmentation; the need for alternative business models; technology as an investment in sustainable health care; the centrality of knowledge management; the importance of partnership and collaboration; the role of self-organization and leadership; and the criticality of building change capabilities.

Health care policy and practice are frequently driven by government mandate. What role does organizational learning have in government‐directed organizational change and what kind of organizational learning might we expect from legislated procedure? In 1983, a task force on indigent health care recommended that maternal and child health become a top service priority in the USA in Texas. The Maternal and Infant Health Improvement Act in Texas eventually grew out of the realization of such need. The Texas Department of Health was assigned responsibility for implementation. Focuses this investigation on the implementation of the state′s resulting maternal and infant health policy from an organizational learning perspective.