Consortium approach gets results in prostate cancer

Benchmarking national centers for excellence hones diagnoses. Patient advocates help achieve balanced approach to treatment. Nearly 80% of eligible patients go on to national clinical trials.     

Science gets sacked.

The Bush administration's obsession with abstinence-only approaches to AIDS prevention is leading to attacks on the notion of safe sex, manipulation of educational materials, loss of funding and other assaults on HIV-prevention organizations, and manipulation of scientific research itself. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, once a partner to HIV experts, has become a case study in the pitched battle between science and ideology.     

Renewing the model employer. Changing employment relations and "partnership" in the health and private sectors

Drawing from original empirical data this paper compares the changing nature of employment relations in the health and private sectors. A key concern is to assess the extent to which the emergence of partnership-type arrangements between employers and trade unions lays the basis for the "renewal" of the traditional public sector concept of the model employer. Empirically, the paper draws on a survey of trade union representatives from 238 workplaces and a case study of a hospital trust. The data reveal that employment relations in the NHS are more collectivist when compared with the private sector. However, the development of partnership in the NHS is hamstrung by ongoing training and involvement gaps and widespread work intensification.     

Neighborhood Helper Program gets back to the basics. Chesapeake General Hospital, Chesapeake Health Department forge partnership to promote neighbors helping neighbors

Chesapeake General Hospital and Chesapeake Health Department have formed an alliance that gets back to the basics. Trained volunteers serve as a healthcare resource for their neighbors. It's called the Neighborhood Helper Program, and it's expanding neighborhood by neighborhood in Chesapeake, Va.     

Hospital/supplier partnership.

As hospitals strive to improve productivity and control the cost and quality of care, many are demanding their suppliers' assistance. Suppliers are developing new sales strategies to build long-term, service-oriented partnerships with selected major accounts. The authors describe the process by which such partnerships are established.     

Old tech gets hip again.

Telemedicine goes deep in the heart of Texas. Pagers get more persistent in St. Louis. And an e-network spans Spokane. From idea to method to gadget, innovative communication in today's digital economy typically involves all three. In each of our three profiles, organizations have pushed old boundaries--and bumped against new ones--in their search for a speedier response, better care, and lower costs. Each added value by putting existing technology to a new use, not the other way around. They all broke new ground by pairing developers with the people taking advantage of their innovations. And all agree: They're hardly finished yet.