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Biomedical subjects

E Ginzberg

Publications and source records attributed to E Ginzberg.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed1991

Access to health care for Hispanics.

The conventional population paradigm in the United States has distinguished between the white majority and the sizable and easily identified black minority. Until recently, much less attention has been paid to Hispanics (or Latinos), currently 20 million in number, who the Census Bureau projects will increase to 31 million persons of a total population of 283 million by the year 2010. In the next two decades Hispanics will account for one of every three net additions to the US population. The analysis that follows considers the critical factors that collectively will determine the access of Hispanics to the health care system and illuminates the changes that, if introduced, will contribute to its improvement. These issues include the homogeneity or heterogeneity of the Hispanic population; the extent to which socioeconomic status adversely affects Hispanics' access to health care; the influence of demographic and epidemiological factors on their needs for care; the role of neighborhood factors in determining their access to the health and medical infrastructures; the paucity of Hispanic health professionals; and finally, the major reform proposals currently on the nation's health agenda as they relate to the issue of improved access to care for Hispanics.

Health Services Accessibility↗
PubMed1991

Everything I know about health care I learned in the Pentagon in World War II.

This is a brief autobiographical account by the chief logistical adviser to the surgeon general of the army of his experiences during World War II, when at peak army hospitals had 600,000 patients in bed on one day and used 40,000 physicians, 100,000 nurses, and 600,000 medical corpsmen to care for them. The recapitulation of that experience calls attention to the fragility of hospital planning, the dangers that underemployed physicians will overtreat patients, the advantages of using nurses as patient care managers in hospitals, and the desirability of not operating too close to the margin. These events of World War II also provide background for understanding the origins of three major post-World War II transformations of U.S. medicine, specifically the much-enhanced demand by the American public for access to a much higher level of medical care than that to which they had earlier been accustomed; the greatly enlarged expenditures of the federal government for basic biomedical research, which derived momentum from the success of research during World War II; and the victory of specialism that captured U.S. medical education and treatment.

Delivery of Health Care↗
PubMed1991

Philanthropy and nonprofit organizations in U.S. health care: a personal retrospective.

As has been true historically, the nonprofit acute-care hospital sector continues to play the dominant role in the nation's health care system. At the same time, the role of philanthropy has changed dramatically. A rough calculation suggests that in 1990, philanthropic dollars accounted for only 1% of health care operating costs and 5% of capital expenditures. By contrast, in New York City in 1940, for example, a major voluntary general hospital received 24% of its income from charitable contributions and only 11.6% from government. This article offers an historical analysis of the changing role of philanthropy and nonprofit hospitals in the structure and operation of the U.S. health care system throughout the 20th century and the implications for current policymaking.

Delivery of Health Care↗
PubMed1989

Do we need more generalists?

The author identifies the confluent forces that have structured U.S. medicine in favor of specialism since World War II. He concludes that any effort to increase the number and proportion of generalists in medicine is problematic in the absence of antecedent and concurrent transformations in the structure and functioning of academic health centers and in the financing of medical care, and of major, long-lasting changes in the delivery of health care. Only after these larger considerations have been addressed can the benefits of a generalist-oriented system be anticipated. Even then, the gains expected to accrue from a greater number of generalists might prove illusory.

Academic Medical Centers↗