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 cursory (optional, but recommended)) readings. This is the case for all chapters in part 1, chapters 8 and 13 in part 2 and chapter 18 in part 3. The rest of the chapters are required readings. The chapters in part 4 are of special importance. (Required readings: 365 pp.)
To strengthen the managerial part of the syllabus some management articles have been added to the syllabus. They are, with one exception, to be considered as core readings. They can be down-loaded from the Internet.
Kenneth R. Brousseau, Michael J. Driver, Gary Hourihan, and Rikard Larsson, «The Seasoned Executive’s Decision-Making Style», Harvard Business Review, Feb. 2006, pp. 110-121.
(https://hbr.org/2006/02/the-seasoned-executives-decision-making-style)
About the article: The authors claim (like Henry Mintzberg) that a leader first of all is a decision-maker (for an organization). They show how different leaders (at different levels) have different decision-making styles and discuss, based on a large, cross-national, data-set, what these styles amount to and do for an organization.
Michael E. Porter and Thomas H. Lee, “The Strategy That Will Fix Health Care”, Harvard Business Review, Oct. 2013, pp. 50-70. (https://hbr.org/2013/10/the-strategy-that-will-fix-health-care)
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 E. Porter, 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.
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 for the organization and financing of primary care.
Clayton M. Christensen, Richard M.J. Bohmer, and John Kenagy, “Will Disruptive Innovations Cure Health Care?” Harvard Business Review, Vol. 78, No. 5, 2000, pp. 102-117. (https://hbr.org/2000/09/will-disruptive-innovations-cure-health-care)
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.
John Edmonstone, “Clinical leadership: the elephant in the room,” International Journal of Health Planning and Management, Vol. 24, No. 4, 2008, pp 290-305. (http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/hpm.959/epdf) (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.
Nancy H. Shanks 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. It can be downloaded from the Internet: (http://www.jblearning.com/samples/076373473X/3473X_CH02_4759.pdf).
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.
Henry Mintzberg 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. (http://www.mintzberg.org/sites/default/files/article/download/4c2.pdf)
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, “Managing the Myths of Health Care,” World Hospitals and Health Services, Vol. 48, No. 3, 2012, pp. 4-7. (http://www.mintzberg.org/sites/default/files/article/download/managing_the_myths_of_health_care.pdf)
About the article: Mintzberg is polemical in this article, as he often is, but the article is interesting because it also gives a concise description of his own preferred version of health care management – one that is more craftlike than technical. Thus he prefers venturing before planning, management rather than heroic leadership, distributed leadership instead of hierarchic leadership and experience-based more than evidence-based management.
Steven A. Finkler, 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. (http://samples.jbpub.com/9781449645281/45281_Ch01_FINAL.pdf)
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 wsell structured.
“Introduction to healthcare financial management,” chapter 1 (pp. 3-40) in Louis C. Gapenski, Healthcare Finance, Health Administration Press, 5th ed., 2011. (http://www.ache.org/pubs/Gapenski_Ch1-proofed.pdf)
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.
Ann Barry Flood and Mary L. Fennell, Through the Lenses of Organizational Sociology: The Role of Organizational Theory and Research in Conceptualizing and Examining Our Health Care System,” Jorunal of Health and Social Behavior, 1995 (Extra issue), pp. 154-169. (http://www.asanet.org/images/members/docs/pdf/special/jhsb/jhsb_extra_1995_Article_8_Flood_Fennell.pdf)
About the article: This is an article based on various types of organization theory and theory of the professions (and medical sociology). It is relatively thorough, and sheds a somewhat different light on many issues of relevance for health care management than do the other readings.
(Total number of pages (required readings): 484 pp. Optional readings: 248 pp.)