Seemed Like a Good Idea: Alchemy versus Evidence-Based Approaches to Healthcare Management Innovation

Consumers, public officials, and even managers of health care and insurance are unhappy about care quality, access, and costs. This book shows that is because efforts to do something about these problems often rely on hope or conjecture, not rigorous evidence of effectiveness. In this book, experts in the field separate the speculative from the proven with regard to how care is rendered, how patients can be in control, how providers should be paid, and how disparities can be reduced – and they also identify the issues for which evidence is currently missing. It provides an antidote to frustration and a clear-eyed guide for forward progress, helping health care and insurance innovators make better decisions on deciding whether to go ahead now based on current evidence, to seek and wait for additional evidence, or to move on to different ideas. It will be useful to practitioners in hospital systems, medical groups, and insurance organizations and can also be used in executive and MBA teaching.

Table of Contents:
1. Baseline observations Mark Pauly; 2. Evidence and growth in aggregate spending and changes in health outcomes Mark Pauly and Benjamin Chartock; 3. The benchmark decision model, the value of evidence, and alternative decision processes Mark Pauly; 4. Care coordination Lawton R. Burns and Rachel M. Werner; 5. Evidence-based programs to improve transitional care of older adults Mary Naylor and Rachel M. Werner; 6. Vertical integration of physician and hospitals: three decades of futile building upon a shaky foundation Lawton R. Burns, David Asch, and Ralph Muller; 7. Evidence on provider payment and medical care management Ralph Muller and Mark Pauly; 8. Evidence on ways to bring about effective consumer and patient engagement Kevin Volpp and Mark Pauly; 9. The unmet and evolving need for evidence-based telehealth Krisda Chaiyachati and Bimal Desai; 10. Evidence and the management of health care for disadvantaged populations Mark Pauly, Ralph Muller, and Mary Naylor; 11. Driving innovation in health care: external evidence, decision-making and leadership Flaura Winston and Mark Pauly; 12. Concluding chapter.

About the Author :
Mark Pauly is Bendheim Professor in the Department of Health Care Management at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. Flaura Winston is Professor of Pediatrics and Distinguished Chair in the Department of Pediatrics, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania. She is Director of the Innovation Ecosystem and Scientific Co-Director of the Center for Injury Research and Prevention, Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, PA, and is a member of the National Academy of Medicine. Mary Naylor is Marian S. Ware Professor in Gerontology and Director of the NewCourtland Center for Transitions and Health at the University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing. Kevin Volpp is Director of the Center for Health Incentives and Behavioral Economics, Health Policy Division Chief of the Department of Medical Ethics and Health Policy, and the Founders President's Distinguished Professor of Medicine, Medical Ethics and Policy, and Health Care Management, at the Perelman School of Medicine and the Wharton School, all at the University of Pennsylvania. Lawton Robert Burns is James Joo-Jin Kim Professor of Health Care Management at the Wharton School and Co-Director of the Roy & Diana Vagelos Program in Life Sciences and Management, all at the University of Pennsylvania. Ralph Muller is former Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the University of Pennsylvania Health System. David Asch is John Morgan Professor at the Perelman School of Medicine and the Wharton School and Executive Director of the Center for Health Care Innovation at Penn Medicine. Rachel Werner is the Executive Director of the Leonard Davis Institute of Health Economics, Professor of Medicine at the Perelman School of Medicine, and the Robert D. Eilers Professor of Health Care Management at the Wharton School, all at the University of Pennsylvania. Bimal Desai is Assistant Vice President and Chief Health Informatics Officer at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia and Associate Professor of Clinical Pediatrics, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania. Krisda Chaiyachati is Assistant Professor, Medicine, at the Perelman School of Medicine and a senior fellow at the Leonard Davis Institute of Health Economics at the University of Pennsylvania as well as Medical Director, Penn Medicine OnDemand Virtual Care (telemedicine). Benjamin Chartock is a doctoral candidate in the Department of Health Care Management at the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania.

Review :
'This is an insightful book from a group of scholars who not only have excellent research credentials, but also have strong understanding of the real world that health care organizations live in. In many different areas needed to improve health care, they present what evidence research provides about what works and what does not and document where the research has been used and where it has not.' Paul B. Ginsburg, Professor of Health Policy, Price School of Public Policy, University of Southern California