Managing the Myths of Health Care

Bridging the Separations between Care, Cure, Control, and Community

Nonfiction, Health & Well Being, Medical, Reference, Administration, Patient Care, Health Care Delivery, Business & Finance, Management & Leadership, Management
Cover of the book Managing the Myths of Health Care by Henry Mintzberg, Berrett-Koehler Publishers
View on Amazon View on AbeBooks View on Kobo View on B.Depository View on eBay View on Walmart
Author: Henry Mintzberg ISBN: 9781626569072
Publisher: Berrett-Koehler Publishers Publication: May 15, 2017
Imprint: Berrett-Koehler Publishers Language: English
Author: Henry Mintzberg
ISBN: 9781626569072
Publisher: Berrett-Koehler Publishers
Publication: May 15, 2017
Imprint: Berrett-Koehler Publishers
Language: English

**“Health care is not failing but succeeding, expensively, and we don't want to pay for it. So the administrations, public and private alike, intervene to cut costs, and herein lies the failure.”

In this sure-to-be-controversial book, leading management thinker Henry Mintzberg turns his attention to reframing the management and organization of health care.

The problem is not management per se but a form of remote-control management detached from the operations yet determined to control them. It reorganizes relentlessly, measures like mad, promotes a heroic form of leadership, favors competition where the need is for cooperation, and pretends that the calling of health care should be managed like a business.

“Management in health care should be about dedicated
and continuous care more than interventionist and episodic cures.”

This *professional form of organizing is the source of health care's great strength as well as its debilitating weakness. In its administration, as in its operations, it categorizes whatever it can to apply standardized practices whose results can be measured. When the categories fit, this works wonderfully well. The physician diagnoses appendicitis and operates; some administrator ticks the appropriate box and pays. But what happens when the fit fails—when patients fall outside the categories or across several categories or need to be treated as people beneath the categories or when the managers and professionals pass each other like ships in the night?

To cope with all this, Mintzberg says that we need to reorganize our heads instead of our institutions. He discusses how we can think differently about systems and strategies, sectors and scale, measurement and management, leadership and organization, competition and collaboration.

“Market control of health care is crass, state control is crude, professional control is closed. We need all three—in their place.”

The overall message of Mintzberg's masterful analysis is that care, cure, control, and community have to work together, within health-care institutions and across them, to deliver quantity, quality, and equality simultaneously.***

View on Amazon View on AbeBooks View on Kobo View on B.Depository View on eBay View on Walmart

**“Health care is not failing but succeeding, expensively, and we don't want to pay for it. So the administrations, public and private alike, intervene to cut costs, and herein lies the failure.”

In this sure-to-be-controversial book, leading management thinker Henry Mintzberg turns his attention to reframing the management and organization of health care.

The problem is not management per se but a form of remote-control management detached from the operations yet determined to control them. It reorganizes relentlessly, measures like mad, promotes a heroic form of leadership, favors competition where the need is for cooperation, and pretends that the calling of health care should be managed like a business.

“Management in health care should be about dedicated
and continuous care more than interventionist and episodic cures.”

This *professional form of organizing is the source of health care's great strength as well as its debilitating weakness. In its administration, as in its operations, it categorizes whatever it can to apply standardized practices whose results can be measured. When the categories fit, this works wonderfully well. The physician diagnoses appendicitis and operates; some administrator ticks the appropriate box and pays. But what happens when the fit fails—when patients fall outside the categories or across several categories or need to be treated as people beneath the categories or when the managers and professionals pass each other like ships in the night?

To cope with all this, Mintzberg says that we need to reorganize our heads instead of our institutions. He discusses how we can think differently about systems and strategies, sectors and scale, measurement and management, leadership and organization, competition and collaboration.

“Market control of health care is crass, state control is crude, professional control is closed. We need all three—in their place.”

The overall message of Mintzberg's masterful analysis is that care, cure, control, and community have to work together, within health-care institutions and across them, to deliver quantity, quality, and equality simultaneously.***

More books from Berrett-Koehler Publishers

Cover of the book The Shareholder Value Myth by Henry Mintzberg
Cover of the book Managing by Henry Mintzberg
Cover of the book Young Money by Henry Mintzberg
Cover of the book Pharmacy on a Bicycle by Henry Mintzberg
Cover of the book Breakdown, Breakthrough by Henry Mintzberg
Cover of the book Raise Capital on Your Own Terms by Henry Mintzberg
Cover of the book Key Case Law Rules for Government Contract Formation by Henry Mintzberg
Cover of the book Stick Your Neck Out by Henry Mintzberg
Cover of the book The Earned Value Management Maturity Model by Henry Mintzberg
Cover of the book The Compromise Trap by Henry Mintzberg
Cover of the book The Prompt Payment Act Answer Book by Henry Mintzberg
Cover of the book Authentic Conversations by Henry Mintzberg
Cover of the book Conversations Worth Having by Henry Mintzberg
Cover of the book Stepping Up by Henry Mintzberg
Cover of the book Creative Community Organizing by Henry Mintzberg
We use our own "cookies" and third party cookies to improve services and to see statistical information. By using this website, you agree to our Privacy Policy