Tracks We Leave: Ethics in Healthcare Management Book

This work provides guidance to executives dealing with the competing values and moral conflicts inherent in healthcare, using cases, discussion, and essays to bring to life debates on issues such as medical errors, physician impairment, sexual harassment, workforce reduction, and patient safety. Cases illustrate what others in similar situations have done, and an epilogue discusses the effects of decisions. Perry has served as a healthcare management consultant to both national and international levels, and held management positions at the American College of Healthcare Executives. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Doody Review Services

Reviewer:Judith Lee Kissell, PhD, MA, BA(Creighton University)
Description:This is an overview of a wide variety of ethics issues in healthcare management using case studies and commentary.
Purpose:The purpose is to stimulate thoughtful analysis of ethics issues and to provide guidelines for navigating ethics quandaries. Although this is a worthy objective, the articles are overly simplistic and for that reason, unhelpful.
Audience:The book is written for professionals involved in healthcare management. The editor has a broad background as a clinician and manager, but apparently not so broad a background in ethics.
Features:The book covers a wide variety of issues in healthcare management in which ethics issues arise. It makes liberal use of case studies. The best feature is a thought provoking excerpt from Laura Nash that lists questions that should be asked regarding business decisions.
Assessment:The ethical issues that arise in the area of healthcare management are complex and heavily nuanced. In many respects this book treats these issues in an overly simplistic way. In many instances there are sentences that state what a person "should" do, as though some list of "should's" and "shouldn't's" solves these difficult problems. There are some excellent books available that cover these issues with much greater subtlety and clarity.