Healthcare Delivery in the U.S.A.: An Introduction, Second Edition

With the same clarity that made the previous edition a bestseller, Healthcare Delivery in the U.S.A.: An Introduction, Second Edition provides readers with the understanding required to navigate the healthcare provider field. Brilliantly simple, yet comprehensive, this updated edition explains how recent health care reform will impact hospitals and health systems. It includes updated case studies and describes the new organizational structures being driven by current market conditions.

Focusing on healthcare management, the book addresses the range of topics critical to understanding the U.S. healthcare system, including the quality of care movement, recent finance reform, and the recent increase in merger and acquisition activity.

Dr. Schulte walks readers through the history of the development of U.S. healthcare delivery. She describes the various venues of care delivery as well as the different elements of the financing system. Offering a glimpse into the global market and medical tourism, the text includes coverage of legal and regulatory issues, workforce, and the drivers and barriers that are shaping healthcare delivery around the world.

Painting a clear and up-to-date picture, this quick-and-easy read provides you with the understanding of the terminology, structures, roles, relationships, and nuances needed to interact effectively and efficiently with anyone in the healthcare provider field.

About the Author

Margaret F. Schulte, DBA, FACHE, CPHIMS, works independently, serving several organizations in various capacities. She is an instructor in Northwestern University’s Masters in Medical Informatics, adjunct faculty in the Masters in Health Administration at Penn State, editor of Frontiers of Health Services Management for the American College of Healthcare Executives, editor of Go-Live Smart Strategies from Davies Award-Winning EHR Implementations, and consultant to the Health Information and Management Systems Society for its Meaningful Use OneSource website. She previously served as vice president of education for the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS), where she was responsible for the professional education programs of this membership association of IT professionals. In this role, she led the development of conference education for the society’s annual conference, which is attended by over 25,000 professionals, and she was responsible for global healthcare IT conferences in Europe and Asia and for other HIMSS education offerings in online and seminar formats.

Dr. Schulte held positions as vice president of research and development for the publishing division of the American Hospital Association and as director of education with the Healthcare Financial Management Association. She served on the faculty of the graduate program in Healthcare Policy and Management at Mercer University in Atlanta, Georgia, where she also served as adjunct faculty to the Mercer University School of Medicine. Previously, she held various management and executive positions in hospitals and in the governmental sector.

Dr. Schulte recently served as a commissioner with the Council for Accreditation of Healthcare Management Education (CAHME) and is on the advisory board of Main Stay Therapeutic Riding Program. She holds a doctorate in business administration from Nova Southeastern University, Fort Lauderdale, Florida, and a master’s in business administration from Xavier University, Cincinnati, Ohio. Dr. Schulte is a fellow in the American College of Healthcare Executives (FACHE) and holds the CPHIMS designation.