A recent Special Issue of Business Horizons (www.elsevier.com/locate/bushor), the journal of the Kelley School of Business, Indiana University, and published by Elsevier, addresses issues central to healthcare and life sciences. Healthcare reform, for example, has been at the center of U.S. political debate in recent years with renewed attempts to gain bipartisan support from Congress for passage of a national system of health insurance coverage. Attention to healthcare and the life sciences extends well beyond this debate. Healthcare providers, insurers, patients and supporting industries all feel the pressure to investigate alternative means for providing quality and affordable healthcare services.
This Special Issue aims to address critical issues in this domain that include the rising costs of healthcare, quality and accessibility of healthcare, as well as rising R&D costs, falling R&D returns and the increased need for partnership within the life science industry.
The timeliness of this issue serves to highlight the ongoing dialogue, particularly in the U.S., regarding healthcare transformation in the global arena. Healthcare is an issue with proponents and opponents of various approaches engaging in passionate debates about how to best provide quality, affordable healthcare and better serve the under- and un-insured. In response to these important global issues, this Special Issue of Business Horizons includes research on topics such as the impact of consumerism on healthcare, the potential for information technology to improve the delivery and management of healthcare, the application of lean-manufacturing concepts as a way to reduce the unacceptable number of medical errors that result in harm to the patient, and the use of patient-centered medical homes (PCMH) as a means for providing efficient and proactive, effective patient care. Contributors represent a host of internationally regarded professionals from industry and academia.
Special Issue Guest Editors, Professors John W. Hill and Arlen W. Langvardt of the Kelley School of Business, Indiana University, USA commented: "In addressing these topics, we have attempted to infuse both academic theory and practice experience into the articles' discussion and prescriptions for practice. The majority of the articles involve collaboration by practitioners and academics as authors."
Business Horizons Editor, Professor Catherine M. Dalton, noted: "It is important to focus on the healthcare and life sciences industries given the multitude of stakeholders impacted by these industries, ranging from the patients served, to healthcare providers and their supporting institutions, to manufacturers of healthcare equipment and pharmaceuticals, to governments grappling with how to best oversee the quality and affordability of healthcare. The public policy implications of this topic are monumental."
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