Focusing on democratization, flexibilization, ethnic diversity and restructuring of transitional and emerging states, this volume analyzes the changes and challenges for administrative structures at the beginning of the 21st century, from a geographical perspective. A team of leading scholars from throughout the world provides a differentiated spatial overview of key problems currently faced in public administration. By offering a wide range of regional case studies from Eastern and Western Europe, the Middle East and Africa, the book tests current theories and concepts of government and governance, space and place, and society and community. In doing so, it offers valuable insights and makes policy implications.
Challenges to Local Government offers a timely discussion of how local governments have implemented public policies during the last decade. Concentrating on Britain and the United States (but with essays on Scandinavia, France and Canada) the authors document, explain and analyze the implications of these policies for local autonomy, focusing especially upon local economic initiatives.
In 1996, the Institute of Medicine (IOM) released its report Telemedicine: A Guide to Assessing Telecommunications for Health Care. In that report, the IOM Committee on Evaluating Clinical Applications of Telemedicine found telemedicine is similar in most respects to other technologies for which better evidence of effectiveness is also being demanded. Telemedicine, however, has some special characteristics-shared with information technologies generally-that warrant particular notice from evaluators and decision makers. Since that time, attention to telehealth has continued to grow in both the public and private sectors. Peer-reviewed journals and professional societies are devoted to telehealth, the federal government provides grant funding to promote the use of telehealth, and the private technology industry continues to develop new applications for telehealth. However, barriers remain to the use of telehealth modalities, including issues related to reimbursement, licensure, workforce, and costs. Also, some areas of telehealth have developed a stronger evidence base than others. The Health Resources and Service Administration (HRSA) sponsored the IOM in holding a workshop in Washington, DC, on August 8-9 2012, to examine how the use of telehealth technology can fit into the U.S. health care system. HRSA asked the IOM to focus on the potential for telehealth to serve geographically isolated individuals and extend the reach of scarce resources while also emphasizing the quality and value in the delivery of health care services. This workshop summary discusses the evolution of telehealth since 1996, including the increasing role of the private sector, policies that have promoted or delayed the use of telehealth, and consumer acceptance of telehealth. The Role of Telehealth in an Evolving Health Care Environment: Workshop Summary discusses the current evidence base for telehealth, including available data and gaps in data; discuss how technological developments, including mobile telehealth, electronic intensive care units, remote monitoring, social networking, and wearable devices, in conjunction with the push for electronic health records, is changing the delivery of health care in rural and urban environments. This report also summarizes actions that the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) can undertake to further the use of telehealth to improve health care outcomes while controlling costs in the current health care environment.
Today is a new metropolitan age and for the first time ever more people live in cities than they do anywhere else. As cities strengthen their international and cultural influence, the global world is acted out most articulately in the world's urban hubs - through its diverse cultures, broad networks and innovative styles of governance. Looking at the city through its internal dynamics, the book examines how governance and cultural policy play out in a national and international framework. Making a truly global contribution to the literature, editors Isar and Anheier bring together a truly international and highly-respected collection of scholars. In doing so, they skilfully steer debates beyond the city as an economic powerhouse, to cover issues that fully comprehend a city's cultural dynamics and its impact on policy including alternative economies, creativity, migration, diversity, sustainability, education and urban planning. Innovative in its approach and content, this book is ideal for students, scholars and researchers interested in sociology, urban studies, cultural studies, and public policy.
This book is intended to give readers detailed information and perspectives on the reform of financial management reform practices in a variety of national settings around the world. The chapters explore the reform agenda in each nation and factors that stimulated change. Each chapter addresses the extent of the influence of "New Public Management" concepts and practices on reform implementation. The nations whose experience is represented in this book are among the most often cited examples of progressive change to be examined and perhaps emulated by governments in other nations. In the introductory chapter the editors address the question whether and to what extent the financial management reforms detailed in the book reveal real progress or a progression of questions and dilemmas faced but not solved over the past several decades.
Recent advances in information and communication technologies have enhanced the standards of metropolitan planning and development. These innovations have led to new opportunities in this evolving profession. Emerging Issues, Challenges, and Opportunities in Urban E-Planning brings together the efficiency of web-based tools and digital technologies with the practice of spatial planning. Focusing on the utilization of geographic information systems, computer-assisted design, visualization concepts, and database management systems, this book is a pivotal reference source for planners, policymakers, researchers, and graduate students interested in how recent technological advancements are enhancing the traditional practices in urban planning.
Drawing on hundreds of interviews with top Chinese officials, parliamentarians, scholars, and businessmen, Willy Lam, a renowned journalist and writer on Chinese affairs, presents a first-hand, multi-dimensional account of twenty-first century China and the impact of fourth generation leaders, including President Hu Jinato and Premier Wen Jiabao. Lam goes behind the glitzy facade of nouveau-riche Beijing and Shanghai to examine how the Hu leadership has tried to extend the Communist Party's "mandate of heaven" by tackling an array of daunting problems: the weakening legitimacy of the Party's leadership; restive peasants; angry workers; political stagnation over the lack of reform; foreign relations difficulties; unreliable energy supplies; resurgent nationalism; and the increasingly dubious "Chinese model" of development. The author assesses possible contributions that the new classes of private businessmen, professionals, and intellectuals - as well as new ideas such as nationalism, globalization, and federalism - will make to economic prosperity and political liberalization. The book also includes a chapter on foreign policy, which contains an insightful account of Beijing's evolving and sometimes difficult relations with the United States, Europe, Japan, and other major countries and blocs, as well as the role of the People's Liberation Army.
