Health Affairs, arguably the most important peer-reviewed journal for health policy issues in the US, has opened up a section of their archives of articles for free access until January 19th.
The 25 most read papers published in 2006 include:
- Nurse Staffing In Hospitals: Is There A Business Case For Quality?
- U.S. Health System Performance: A National Scorecard
- Consumer-Directed Health Care: Early Evidence About Effects On Cost And Quality
- What Accounts For Differences In The Use Of Hospital Emergency Departments Across U.S. Communities?
- The Effect Of Population Aging On Future Hospital Demand
- Extracting Knowledge From Science: A Conversation With Elias Zerhouni (Director of the National Institutes of Health)
A second site contains links to the 25 most read papers in 2006 including:
- Can Electronic Medical Record Systems Transform Health Care? Potential Health Benefits, Savings, And Costs
- Health Spending In The United States And The Rest Of The Industrialized World
- The Working Hours of Hospital Staff Nurses and Patient Safety
- Cultural Competence And Health Care Disparities: Key Perspectives And Trends
- How Nonprofits Matter In American Medicine, And What To Do About It
- On The Front Lines Of Care: Primary Care Doctors’ Office Systems, Experiences, And Views In Seven Countries
Plenty of food for thought just among the ones I've highlighted here. In each case, roles and opportunities for social marketers to contribute to addressing some of the larger health care issues facing our country and world are there - you just have to look for them.
Some of the things I spend time thinking about when it's not about health behaviors: The intersection of health care and marketing (no, not the advertising campaigns for services) is one that has been largely unexplored by social marketers. How would you create systems to improve patient safety and outcomes while they are in the hospital? What roles can electronic health records play in managing health behaviors other than giving access to health information to providers? How can marketing approaches help manage access and utilization of health services? How will social marketing improve consumer-directed health care efforts [and God knows the caution flags should be out by now]?
Start thinking about adding social media approaches to these and similar types of problems, and then it gets really interesting!
Again, offer good for two weeks only. Try building and honing your wonk chops.
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