Nilmini Wickramasinghe

Rajeev Bali

Michael Christopher Gibbons

It is a tragic paradox of American health care: a system renowned for world-class doctors, the latest medical technologies, and miraculous treatments has shocking inadequacies when it comes to the health of the urban poor. Urban Health Knowledge Management outlines bold, workable strategies for addressing this disparity and eliminating the “knowledge islands” that so often disrupt effective service delivery. The book offers a wide-reaching global framework for organizational competence leading to improved care quality and outcomes for traditionally underserved clients in diverse, challenging settings. Its contributors understand the issues fluently, imparting both macro and micro concepts of KM with clear rationales and real-world examples as they: • Analyze key aspects of KM and explains their applicability to urban health. • Introduce the KM tools and technologies most relevant to health care delivery. • Offer evidence of the role of KM in improving clinical efficacy and executive decision-making. • Provide extended case examples of KM-based programs used in Washington, D.C. (child health), South Africa (HIV/AIDS), and Australia (health inequities). • Apply KM principles to urban health needs in developing countries. • Discuss new approaches to managing, evaluating, and improving delivery systems in the book’s “Measures and Metrics” section. Urban health professionals, as well as health care executives and administrators, will find Urban Health Knowledge Management a significant resource for bringing service delivery up to speed at a time of great advancement and change.

Perspectives of Knowledge Management in Urban Health

Reima Suomi

Stefan Kirn

Pervasive healthcare is an emerging research discipline, focusing on the development and application of pervasive and ubiquitous computing technology for healthcare and wellness. Pervasive healthcare seeks to respond to a variety of pressures on healthcare systems, including the increased incidence of life-style related and chronic diseases, emerging consumerism in healthcare, need for empowering patients and relatives for self-care and management of their health, and need to provide seamless access for healthcare services, independent of time and place. Pervasive healthcare may be defined from two perspectives. First, it is the development and application of pervasive computing (or ubiquitous computing, ambient intelligence) technologies for healthcare, health and wellness management. Second, it seeks to make healthcare available to anyone, anytime, and anywhere by removing locational, time and other restraints while increasing both the coverage and quality of healthcare. This book proposes to define the emerging area of pervasive health and introduce key management principles, most especially knowledge management, its tools, techniques and technologies. In addition, the book takes a socio-technical, patient-centric approach which serves to emphasize the importance of a key triumvirate in healthcare management namely, the focus on people, process and technology. Last but not least the book discusses in detail a specific example of pervasive health, namely the potential use of a wireless technology solution in the monitoring of diabetic patients.

Rajeev Bali

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