Authors

  1. Falter, Elizabeth (Betty) MS, RN, NEA-BC

Article Content

The Nation's Health, 8th edition, Leiyu Shi, DrPH, MBA, MPA and Douglas A. Singh, PhD, MBA. 2011.

 

Sudbury, MA: Jones and Bartlett Learning. Softcover. 856 pages, weight: 3 lbs. $99.95.

 

First impression of a book of this size, in its 8th edition, is it must be for Academia. Clearly, those enrolled in Academic programs will benefit from such awell-researched book. For nurse executives, the book is an excellent reference resource for definitions, frameworks, statistics, performance measures, history, and ideas clearly outside the traditional box of health care scholars. The current dialogue on health care reform is much too important for us not to have a comprehensive review of health itself and the multiple variables and approaches that affect our nation's health. This is not an easy subject nor is it an easy read. But it will challenge you to look outside your comfort zone as you formulate your own opinion as to what we should do. You simply cannot Google the work put into this book. But you can put it on your bookshelf to pull out when you need it. I tested its application by having a technology expert look for his area of specialty. It was not only there, but also raised the readers eyebrows on that chapter's grasp of the industry

 

For myself, I searched for nursing. Did the book adequately address these areas? No. The chapter on workforce, given the shortage issue in nursing focused on physicians. The index had 2 references to nurses. Chapter 9, The Organization of Health Care, did include Mary Naylor (University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing) and her program for improving the coordination of care for older adults who have been hospitalized for heart failure complicated by other chronic health conditions (p. 430). There is another reference on nurse navigators, used by health plans to manage patients with complex conditions (p. 735). Two of the readings have nurses as one of the authors. The most nursing-based reading-Partners in Critical Care-is from the Canadian Critical Care Nurses Association and can be found in Chapter 12, p. 573.

 

Not having insight in the book to the significant role nurses have played, currently play, and will play in the future of our nation's health is an omission and a loss to any subsequent discussion on innovative ideas to address the future of health care. Nurse leaders should be aware of these influential books to continue to educate others on care of people from birth to death.

 

The authors organize these 895 pages through 5 parts, 18 chapters, and 82 readings. They address health from outcomes to the future of health care delivery, and examine health from public health, primary care, tertiary care, and so on. The authors are both strategic and broad in their examination of health. Perhaps in the 9th edition they will include the currently released Institute of Medicine report The Future of Nursing: Leading Change, Advancing Health, released October 2010 under the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Initiative on the Future of Nursing, at the Institute of Health.

 

Elizabeth (Betty) Falter, MS, RN,

 

NEA-BC

 

President, Falter & Associates Inc, Tucson, Arizona