The National Health Service, or NHS, is the United Kingdom’s national healthcare system. It oversees the public’s health and ensures the medical wellbeing of the population of the UK. Governance network processes are complex because of the different nature of agendas and strategies of actors involved in health, but increasingly, because of the link between social and healthcare delivery, recent initiatives to provide a joined up or integrated approach have been presented. However, the extent of joined-up governance processes in the National Health Service is rather uneven. So far, reforms to try to improve the running of the NHS through the introduction of market mechanisms or increased decentralization have only served to exacerbate such tensions and resulted in further fragmentation of the public health system. The NHS and Contemporary Health Challenges From a Multilevel Perspective illustrates the complexities of governing public health services that are part of the NHS and takes an innovative approach by examining public health provision through a multiscalar lens, which reveals significant limits of the current governance model. The book raises the various challenges that clinical staff, public authorities, and the general public face in the provision of healthcare to uphold core values inherent in health systems. While highlighting topics including health governance, patient satisfaction, and public health, this book is ideally designed for policymakers, government officials, healthcare administrators, hospital managers, healthcare researchers, medical professionals, and students.

Public health has become an essential area of focus in terms of the way it operates, the services offered, policies, and more. Maintaining an effective public health system and infrastructure, updated and useful policies, and health literacy are primary concerns. A critical analysis of public healthcare policy and services is critical to accommodate the changing health demands of the global population. Through a deeper understanding of the way public health services are offered, a look into policymaking and current policies in healthcare, and the way health literacy and health education are promoted, the current state and future of public health are acknowledged. The Research Anthology on Public Health Services, Policies, and Education presents a view of public health through an analysis of healthcare services and delivery; policies in terms of policymaking, ethics, and governance; as well as the way society is educated on public health affairs. The chapters will cover a wide range of issues such as healthcare policy, health literacy, healthcare reform, accessibility, public welfare, and more. This book is essential for public health officials, government officials, policymakers, teachers, medical professionals, health agencies and organizations, professionals, researchers, academics, practitioners, and students interested in the current state of public health and the improvement of public health services and policies for the future.

Currently, informatics within the field of public health is a developing and growing industry. Clinical informatics are used in direct patient care by supplying medical practitioners with information that can be used to develop a care plan. Intelligent applications in clinical informatics facilitates with the technology-based solutions to analyze data or medical images and help clinicians to retrieve that information. Decision models aid with making complex decisions especially in uncertain situations. The Handbook of Research on Applied Intelligence for Health and Clinical Informatics is a comprehensive reference book that focuses on the study of resources and methods for the management of healthcare infrastructure and information. This book provides insights on how applied intelligence with deep learning, experiential learning, and more will impact healthcare and clinical information processing. The content explores the representation, processing, and communication of clinical information in natural and engineered systems. This book covers a range of topics including applied intelligence, medical imaging, telehealth, and decision support systems, and also looks at technologies and tools used in the detection and diagnosis of medical conditions such as cancers, diabetes, heart disease, lung disease, and prenatal syndromes. It is an essential reference source for diagnosticians, medical professionals, imaging specialists, data specialists, IT consultants, medical technologists, academicians, researchers, industrial experts, scientists, and students.

The COVID-19 pandemic has put massive stress on healthcare professionals’ formal training, their creed to do no harm, and the patient safety movement. COVID-19 affects all aspects of daily life and healthcare’s organizational culture and values. Healthcare institutions experience absenteeism, change in commerce patterns, and interrupted supply/delivery in this context. It has also revealed the extensive amounts of data needed for population health management, as well as the opportunities afforded by mainstreaming telehealth and virtual care capabilities, thus making the implementation of health IT essential in the post-pandemic era. Quality of Healthcare in the Aftermath of the COVID-19 Pandemic clarifies how healthcare professionals might provide their services differently than treating a patient through its vicinity with multiple providers. It examines the notion that healthcare education requires a pack of healthcare workers from varied educational backgrounds and training levels for the nuances of a disease. Covering topics such as blockchain technology, power density analysis, and supply chain, this book is a valuable resource for undergraduate and extended degree program students, graduate students of healthcare quality and health services management, healthcare managers, health professionals, researchers, professors, and academicians.

Implementation of guidelines in the health system is a major undertaking, especially in developing countries. An important constraint in guideline development in developing countries is that the guideline recommendations must suit local conditions and must make use of available resources. This is a challenge because the health systems of developing countries have a high burden of disease and little resources; therefore, guidelines must rely on cost-effective healthcare interventions. The BACIS program study was initiated to address some of these challenges in the dissemination and utilization of maternal health guidelines. The BACIS program was piloted, and the results showed that the BACIS program could assist in improving compliance of nurses with the national maternity care guidelines. This is an impressive finding and step forward for maternal healthcare in developing countries. Developing Maternal Health Decision Support Systems in Developing Countries discusses public health aspects of the design and implementation of clinical decision support systems in developing country contexts. Specifically, it focuses largely on the design and evaluation of the BACIS program in South Africa. This is supplemented with a conversation on the possible future research directions in the BACIS program study along with the outlook for clinical decision support systems in developing country contexts in general. This book is ideal for e-health system designers and implementers, managers and policymakers in the area of e-health in developing countries, personnel from NPOs and donor agencies, government officials, IT consultants, medical professionals, practitioners, stakeholders, researchers, academicians, and students who are interested in how decision support systems such as BACIS are being used to improve maternal health in developing countries.

Health information about any patent is extremely critical. As there are many malicious users and misuses of health data, this information is not shared amongst health organizations due to security and privacy issues. Blockchain is being explored as a platform for securely exchanging healthcare data among the organizations in public domains, allowing doctors and practitioners to have access to more comprehensive health histories and in turn provide better care to patients. Prospects of Blockchain Technology for Accelerating Scientific Advancement in Healthcare disseminates the recent research findings on blockchain in healthcare and reviews current state-of-the-art blockchain applications in healthcare. This book also discusses various challenges faced by the healthcare community in securing healthcare data. Covering topics such as consensus mechanisms, smart healthcare systems, and supply chain management, it serves as an essential resource for healthcare professionals, computer scientists, information security professionals, data scientists, policymakers, researchers, and academicians.

The recent advancements in the machine learning paradigm have various applications, specifically in the field of medical data analysis. Research has proven the high accuracy of deep learning algorithms, and they have become a standard choice for analyzing medical data, especially medical images, video, and electronic health records. Deep learning methods applied to electronic health records are contributing to understanding the evolution of chronic diseases and predicting the risk of developing those diseases. Approaches and Applications of Deep Learning in Virtual Medical Care considers the applications of deep learning in virtual medical care and delves into complex deep learning algorithms, calibrates models, and improves the predictions of the trained model on medical imaging. Covering topics such as big data and medical sensors, this critical reference source is ideal for researchers, academicians, practitioners, industry professionals, hospital workers, scholars, instructors, and students.