Special Issue on Health-Care Research

Health-care research, in all its forms, is an important and tool for health-care organizations to improve their contribution to society and better account for the impact of the services necessary undertaking. As medical science advances and technological breakthroughs are made, quality delivered to the community at large. Health-care organizations must not only look outward and of diagnostic measures and treatments will progress. As the population ages and persistent forms of disease remain (and evaluate the market needs, but must also realize that the effectiveness with which their services are delivered depends new strains develop), there will be more work to do. From a business perspective, the health-care environment presents its upon the health-care professionals who work with the organization. One of the fundamental differences between services own unique problems. These have been addressed for the past 17 years at the annual conference of the Association for and tangible goods is the simultaneous production and consumption of the product. This difference is critical for creating Health Care Research (AHCR). Academics and practitioners have joined to sort out some of the macroand microlevel a positive environment in which health-care professionals work so that internal marketing programs can effectively reinissues of the health-care industry; those related to the legal and economic dynamics, the management of health-care orgaforce service delivery. The Cooper and Cronin article presents the results of a program for developing effective internal marnizations, the interaction of patients and providers, the healthketing with nursing assistants in the long-term care industry. seeking behavior of various segments, and the marketing and Health-care organizations must concentrate on developing delivery of services to all types of populations. Many of the effective strategic and marketing plans. This process necessipapers herein were originally presented in their formative tates attending to the financial aspects of service delivery. The stages at the AHCR conference. They have been refined and health-care system fee structures moved from fee-for-service developed to the standards of the Journal of Business Research to capitation in the continued efforts to control health-care and underwent a double-blind review process. The 11 papers costs. Devine, O’Clock, and Lyons address this issue and are divided into four sections pertaining to management ishighlight the importance of health-care organizations implesues, the complexities of reorganizations, measurement chalmenting management accounting systems. Specifically, their lenges, and service delivery. We thank the reviewers for their article discusses how health-care organizations might apply hard work and diligence in the assembly of this issue. Their such practices as activity-based costing, life cycle costing, and expertise and valuable feedback are most appreciated. value chain analysis in their efforts to control costs and imHealth-care delivery has undergone continual change. The prove evaluation systems. increasing move toward managed care plans and government Service delivery is coming under increasing scrutiny in the involvement has stimulated discussion on an individual’s life health-care industry. This is partially caused by an effort to satisfaction (and its relationship to health status) and the evaluate the effectiveness of delivery and partially to measure contribution that health services make to over all quality of customer satisfaction. Both of these measures are important for life. The Rahtz and Sirgy study provides a Quality of Life/ enhancing the effectiveness of service delivery and controlling Needs Assessment model that evaluates the role health-care health-care costs. Mishra’s article highlights the increasing use services play in an individual’s life satisfaction. They advocate of paper and pencil measures for measuring such abstract the use of this model as a strategic planning and measurement concepts as patient satisfaction, health status, and total quality management. As the article demonstrates, these measures are Address correspondence to Dr. A. L. Balazs, Mississippi University for Women, fraught with measurement error that potentially affects meaDivision of Business & Communication, P.O. Box W-940, Columbus, MS 39701, USA. surement accuracy. Mishra asserts that current studies using