The following publications are widely respected as pioneering thought in the advancement of health care reform and transformation in the U.S. They are recommended to anyone desiring a deeper understanding of the multifaceted issues and possible solutions that comprise such a far-reaching mission. Please check back often for updates.
*This content is for information purposes only. HTI does not promote or endorse any of the products, services or organizations nor profit from the sale of any of the products or services listed below.
Building a Better Delivery System: A New Engineering/Health Care Partnership
Proctor P. Reid, W. Dale Compton, Jerome H. Grossman, and Gary Fanjiang, Editors. National Academy of Engineering and Institute of Medicine. The National Academies Press, Washington, D.C.; 2005. This report, is the culmination a joint NAE/IOM study and concludes that the U.S. health care industry has neglected engineering strategies and technologies that have revolutionized quality, productivity, and performance in many other industries.
Building Social Business: The New Kind of Capitalism That Serves Humanity’s Most Pressing Needs
Mohammed Yunus. Public Affairs, New York; 2010. This book describes a sustainable business model that focuses on meeting social need such as healthcare as an alternative to a business model that has a goal of returning financial gain for investors or the use of philanthropy.
Can Medicine Be Cured: The Corruption of a Profession
Seamus O’Mahoney. Apollo; 2019. “A fierce, honest, elegant and often hilarious debunking of the great fallacies that drive modern medicine.”
Diffusion of Innovations (5th ed.)
Everett M. Rogers. Free Press, New York; 2003. This book describes the generation of innovations, the process by which innovations are adopted and the concept of change agents.
Engineering the System of Healthcare Delivery
Edited by William B. Rouse and Denis A. Cortese. IOS Press, Washington, DC.; 2009. This book describes the need for, nature of high-value health care and how to make it a reality.
The Healthcare Imperative: Lowering Costs and Improving Outcomes
Pierre L. Yong, Robert S. Saunders, and LeighAnne Olsen, Editors. The National Academies Press, Washington, D.C.; 2011. The United States spends far more on health care than any other nation. In 2009, health care costs reached $2.5 trillion—nearly 17 percent of the GDP. Yet despite this spending, health outcomes in the U.S. are considerably below those in other countries.
The Innovator’s Prescription – A Disruptive Solution for Health Care
Clayton M. Christensen, Jerome H. Grossman, Jason Hwang, M.D. McGraw-Hill; 2009. This book applies the concept of disruptive innovations that have changed other industries, including communications and the computer industry to healthcare and provides insight into healthcare delivery and business models to support new healthcare delivery systems.
The Learning Healthcare System
LeighAnne Olsen, Dara Aisner, and J. Michael McGinnis, Roundtable on Evidence-Based Medicine. The National Academies Press, Washington, D.C.; 2007. A summary of an Institute of Medicine workshop, The Learning Healthcare System, is the first publication of the IOM Roundtable on Evidence-Based Medicine, and the first in a series that will focus on issues important to improving the development and application of evidence in healthcare decision making.
Overtreated: Why too Much Medicine is Making Us Sicker and Poorer
Shannon Brownlee. Bloomsbury, USA; 2007. Overtreated explores the over use of expensive medical services in the United States.
Tracking Medicine: A Researcher’s Quest to Understand Health Care
John E. Wenneberg. Oxford University Press, New York.; 2010. Tracking Medicine offers physicians, administrators, policy makers, journalists, and patients and families an understanding of the health care system. It should be a required text for medical students, public health students, health services researchers, and others interested in evaluating medical care.
USA Inc.
Mary Meeker. KPCB.; 2011. USA Inc. is a non-partisan report that looks at the U.S. federal government (and its financials) as if it were a business. USA Inc. examines the country’s income statement and balance sheet, aiming to interpret the underlying data and facts, and illustrate patterns and trends in easy-to-understand ways. The report also analyzes the drivers of federal revenue and the history of expense growth, and discusses basic scenarios for how revenue and expense growth might change to help America move toward positive cash flow.
Who Shall Live? Health, Economics and Social Choice
Victor R. Fuchs. World Scientific, New Jersey; 2011. In this classic book, Professor Victor Fuchs draws on his deep understanding of the strengths and limitations of economics and his intimate knowledge of health care institutions to help readers understand the problems every nation faces in trying to allocate health resources efficiently and equitably.