The Economics of Health and Medical Care - Book Review

AORN Journal, Feb, 2003 by Lesley Henderson

fifth ed By Philip Jacobs and John Rappaport 2002, 423 pp $70 hardback

Today, more than ever, health care practitioners need the knowledge and skills to predict health care trends and provide health care based on sound economic principles. This book provides the tools to accomplish these tasks.

This comprehensive book carefully examines the economic forces affecting the health care industry within the context of general economic principles. It would be excellent for use in a graduate-level course. Numerous graphs and images illustrate the complex mathematical relationships the text describes.

The authors have divided the book into three areas: descriptive economics, explanatory economics, and evaluative economics. Each section provides readers with a systematic approach that enables them to define, measure, explain, and predict economic trends based on current economic information.

The book also helps readers evaluate the effects of predicted changes on the health care industry. The evaluative chapters provide readers with logical alternatives to current funding and possible implications of each alternative. There are some interesting sections that propose and discuss alternatives to health care delivery options. This book lends itself to lively classroom discussions of health care delivery and policy--particularly the chapters in the evaluative section that deal with value judgments, economic evaluation, and public health insurance. The book's discussion of the market value of altruism is very interesting.

The book is well-organized and easy to follow. The fact that this book assumes a rather high level of mathematical ability makes it useful only to those studying theory. The average professional would have little interest in this book, with the exception of the final chapters on regulations, antitrust, and the economic evaluation of health care, which could be of interest to administrators.

This book is available from Aspen Publishers, Inc, 200 Orchard Ridge Dr, Suite 200, Gaithersburg, MD 20878; http://www.aspenpublishers.com.

LESLEY HENDERSON
RN, MSN, CNOR
ASSISTANT PROFESSOR
DEPARTMENT OF NURSING,
STATE UNIVERSITY OF WEST GEORGIA

CARROLLTON