Health care system has suffered from poor management from the beginning. The physician is a private entrepreneur who is concerned, and rightly so, with the one doctor/one patient relationship. The hospitals have been traditionally poor in management skills because they are operated on a breakeven basis in which charges are designed to meet expenses. In addition, there is little finesse in cost accounting because the failure to use cost centres and more sophisticated accounting techniques have resulted in a situation where there is no direct relationship between costs and charges.
The traditional management text books offer little help. These books are concerned with management for sales and profits which are totally foreign to the medical environment. The books usually deal with the business problems whereas the medical care system is a bureaucracy and should be understood as such.
In this book, the author has tried to present much of the traditional management information in the form of material which will be of use to the medical community.
About the Author: Dr J. H. U. Brown has been a researcher, teacher, and administrator in the health profession for most of his life. After a period of teaching in medical schools (University of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill; and Emory University, Atlanta), he became Acting Director of the National Institute of General Medical Sciences of the National Institutes of Health and then Deputy Associate Administrator of the Health Services and Mental Health Administration dealing with the impact of technology on health services and the development of new technology. During this period, he participated with NASA in the development of the Linc-8 computer, launching of the ATS-6 technology satellite, and in the development of the technology based communication and health delivery system for the Indian Health Service.
Dr Brown received his B.S. from Southwest Texas State University, San Marcos, where he has been declared a Most Distinguished Alumnus and his Ph.D. from Rutgers University, New Brunswick, N.J., in biochemistry and physiology.
He was responsible for the development of the biomedical engineering research and training program at NIH and was the founder and president of the Biomedical Engineering Society.
Dr. Brown has received many honours. He is a member of the National Academy of Engineering, a Fellow of the IEEE and the AAAS, a Fulbright Scholar, and the holder of several prestigious fellowships.
During the course of his career, Dr. Brown has published more than 120 papers and some 20 books in the area of medical research and health care delivery. He has invented several devices for medical research.
