This book examines the important role of consumer activism in health policy in different national contexts. In an age of shifting boundaries between state and civil society, consumer groups are potentially drivers of democratisation in the health domain. The expert contributors explore how their activities bring new dynamics to relations between service providers, the medical profession, government agencies, and other policy actors. This book is unique in comprehensivelyanalysing the opportunities and dilemmas of this type of activism, including ambiguous partnerships between consumer groups and stakeholders such as the pharmaceutical industry. These themes are explored within aninternationally comparative framework, with case studies from various countries.

This book provides an account of milestone health insurance reforms that took place in Korea and Thailand, which significantly advanced equitable access and redistribution in health care. Thai and Korean welfare champions were deeply informed by their experiences as activists in their countries' democracy movements.

Introduction; Four Case Studies of Democratic Reform; Lessons from the Four Case Studies; Linking Democratic Forms of of Governance to Progressive Health Care Reform in BC; Conclusion; ADDEND; A Proposal for Community Con ... ; Notes.

The process of user-centered innovation: how it can benefit both users and manufacturers and how its emergence will bring changes in business models and in public policy. Innovation is rapidly becoming democratized. Users, aided by improvements in computer and communications technology, increasingly can develop their own new products and services. These innovating users—both individuals and firms—often freely share their innovations with others, creating user-innovation communities and a rich intellectual commons. In Democratizing Innovation, Eric von Hippel looks closely at this emerging system of user-centered innovation. He explains why and when users find it profitable to develop new products and services for themselves, and why it often pays users to reveal their innovations freely for the use of all.The trend toward democratized innovation can be seen in software and information products—most notably in the free and open-source software movement—but also in physical products. Von Hippel's many examples of user innovation in action range from surgical equipment to surfboards to software security features. He shows that product and service development is concentrated among "lead users," who are ahead on marketplace trends and whose innovations are often commercially attractive. Von Hippel argues that manufacturers should redesign their innovation processes and that they should systematically seek out innovations developed by users. He points to businesses—the custom semiconductor industry is one example—that have learned to assist user-innovators by providing them with toolkits for developing new products. User innovation has a positive impact on social welfare, and von Hippel proposes that government policies, including R&D subsidies and tax credits, should be realigned to eliminate biases against it. The goal of a democratized user-centered innovation system, says von Hippel, is well worth striving for. An electronic version of this book is available under a Creative Commons license.

Reimagining the Patient Experience and What it Means to Deliver HealthcareAI is revolutionizing the Where, When, What and How people access healthcare. Trained healthcare professionals and physical clinics are a limited and expensive resource. With location removed from the equation, shifting care to the point of the patient increases access and lowers the cost of delivery. The negligible incremental cost to provide an AI based software program per person makes AI infinitely scalable and accessible.The patient experience is changing, expectations are evolving, and the major healthcare stakeholders are recognizing healthcare can be delivered in new ways that improve patient outcomes. AI advancements across Vocal Biomarkers, Remote Patient Monitoring, Digital Therapeutics, Voice Recognition, Decision Support Tools, Virtual Reality, and Predictive Care are converging together to create Ambient Healthcare Computing: the ever-present healthcare assistant that monitors, analyzes, and provides the right interventions to the right person at the right time. This future of ambient computing promises a reimagined healthcare paradigm from sick-care to continuous-care.

"The field of Biomarkers and Precision Medicine in drug development is rapidly evolving and this book presents a snapshot of exciting new approaches. By presenting a wide range of biomarker applications, discussed by knowledgeable and experienced scientists, readers will develop an appreciation of the scope and breadth of biomarker knowledge and find examples that will help them in their own work." -Maria Freire, Foundation for the National Institutes of Health Handbook of Biomarkers and Precision Medicine provides comprehensive insights into biomarker discovery and development which has driven the new era of Precision Medicine. A wide variety of renowned experts from government, academia, teaching hospitals, biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies share best practices, examples and exciting new developments. The handbook aims to provide in-depth knowledge to research scientists, students and decision makers engaged in Biomarker and Precision Medicine-centric drug development. Features: Detailed insights into biomarker discovery, validation and diagnostic development with implementation strategies Lessons-learned from successful Precision Medicine case studies A variety of exciting and emerging biomarker technologies The next frontiers and future challenges of biomarkers in Precision Medicine Claudio Carini, Mark Fidock and Alain van Gool are internationally recognized as scientific leaders in Biomarkers and Precision Medicine. They have worked for decades in academia and pharmaceutical industry in EU, USA and Asia. Currently, Dr. Carini is Honorary Faculty at Kings’s College School of Medicine, London, UK. Dr. Fidock is Vice President of Precision Medicine Laboratories at AstraZeneca, Cambridge, UK. Prof.dr. van Gool is Head Translational Metabolic Laboratory at Radboud university medical school, Nijmegen, NL.

In the 1960s and 1970s, a wave of social movements permeated the American landscape; these pushes for change included the community health movement and the women's health movement. In considering these two health movements, I wondered if communities were better served by their new modes of healthcare delivery than they had been in the past? To explore this question more deeply, I choose two New England health centers as case sutdies for my thesis. The first clinic is a community health center in Dorchester, Massachusetts, which started in 1965. The second clinic, the New Hampshire Women's Health Services located in New Hampshire's capital, opened in 1974. I utilized oral interviews, newspaper articles, surveys conducted by non-profit organizations, and the feminist health center's quarterly publication to establish the histories of each health center. I then placed these narratives into the scholarship of each health movement. Although I initially planned on highlighting the avenues for empowerment created in these health movements, the use of a health social movements framework allowed me to underscore an even more prominent commonality between the two centers: the revived emphasis on experiential knowledge in the medical profession in the second half of the twentieth century.