Clinical Integration: Strategies And Practices For Organized Delivery Systems

Clinical Integration is a ground-breaking book that outlines successful approaches to achieving clinical integration and narrowing the gap between those who provide patient care services and those who design health systems.

Written by clinicians, executives, and managers who have implemented integrated delivery systems within health care organizations, Clinical Integration is filled with practical strategies and illustrative case examples that can be used to make integration a reality. The book offers guidance for implementing field-tested mechanisms, such as systemwide information systems, clinical paths, case management, process improvement, and outcomes management. It outlines methods that foster and strengthen clinical integration and details how to
Create information systems that can support care coordination and management across delivery sites
Implement a CareMap system that will create more clinical standardization and more coordinated, cost-effective care for patients
Develop a case management model program for multiprovider systems
Put into place continuous quality improvement, outcomes management, and clinical education programs that can be interrelated to form a powerful integrative engine

Comprehensive in scope, Clinical Integration highlights the vital leadership role executives and governing boards play in making integration a success. It also address the challenges of administrative and physician-system integration with chapters that describe operations within a product service/line structure and outline a multifaceted approach to working with physicians collaboratively.

Health care administrators, physicians, nurses, policymakers, educators, and students will find Clinical Integration to be a balanced blend of theory and practice that contains an abundance of real-world strategies and lessons from pioneers in the field.

Reengineering Organized Delivery Systems
The Center for Case Management
Managed care pressures are forcing the creation of larger and larger delivery systems, but little is known about how to coordinate clinical services within these complex systems.
This ground breaking resource outlines six specific mechanisms to successfully accomplish clinical integration, and narrow the gap between those who manage patient care services and those who plan overall health systems. Written by experts-- executives, doctors, and nurses--the book offers down-to-earth guidance and tested strategies for creating and improving clinical integration.
Throughout the book, the authors include vivid case examples as well as illustrative tables, diagrams, and figures.
Tonges' book should be required reading in all health care administration programs. Under one cover, this dynamic, up-to-the-moment book shows how clinical integration can and must be achieved in today's managed care environment.
--Barbara Barnum, RN, Ph.D., FAAN, professor of Clinical Nursing, Columbia University School of Nursing