Last modified: Tuesday, February 23, 2010
Special issue of Business Horizons focuses on health care and life sciences issues
Authors in Kelley School-based journal represent a variety of internationally regarded professionals from industry and academia
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Feb. 23, 2010
BLOOMINGTON, Ind. -- A special issue of Business Horizons, a bimonthly journal published by Indiana University's Kelley School of Business, in partnership with Elsevier, will focus on issues central to health care and life sciences.
Health care reform has been at the heart of much recent political debate in the United States, including renewed attempts to gain bipartisan support from Congress for passage of a national system of health insurance coverage. Special issue guest editors and Kelley School professors John W. Hill and Arlen W. Langvardt said they set out more than two years ago to examine healthcare and life sciences issues beyond the debate.
"We didn't try to address where health care reform was going," said Hill, a professor of accounting and the Arthur M. Weimer Chair of Business Administration. "What we tried to do was address aspects of the healthcare reform debate that had really not been at the forefront, underlying issues that were pertinent to the health care reform discussion but really hadn't gotten much attention."
Contributors represent a host of internationally regarded professionals from industry and academia. The majority of the articles involve collaboration by practitioners and academics as authors. For example, the special issue includes articles about:
- The role of government in fostering health care and the largely unreported success story in Switzerland;
- One of the least-discussed aspects of the debate -- the potential impact of reform on the value of providers and life science firms and their long-term ability to attract investor capital;
- The role of information technology, including using it to improve the delivery and management of health care;
- The application of lean-manufacturing concepts as a way to reduce the unacceptable number of medical errors that result in harm to the patient;
- The use of patient-centered medical homes as a means for providing efficient and proactive, effective patient care.
Health care providers, insurers, patients and supporting industries all feel the pressure to investigate alternative means for providing quality and affordable health care services. The special issue also aims to address critical issues in this domain that include the accessibility of health care, rising R&D costs, falling R&D returns and the increased need for partnership within the life science industry.
"It is important to focus on the health care and life sciences industries given the multitude of stakeholders impacted by these industries, ranging from the patients served, to health care providers and their supporting institutions, to manufacturers of health care equipment and pharmaceuticals, to governments grappling with how to best oversee the quality and affordability of health care," said Catherine M. Dalton, Business Horizons' editor and the David H. Jacobs Chair in Strategic Management.
Langvardt said the special issue is an outgrowth of a recent but major initiative at the Kelley School -- its Center for the Business of Life Sciences, of which he is research director. The center's research fellows program recognizes life sciences-related research already being done at Kelley and encourages further research, particularly that of an interdisciplinary nature.
"Until I started working with the center in that position (in 2008), I wasn't aware of how many faculty in the school have research interests along these lines," he said. "It's a broad range of faculty members, cutting across almost every department of the school."
In addition to journal subscribers, Langvardt said the center will present copies of the special issue to health care and life science professionals and others involved in the industry.
The March/April special issue, "Healthcare and the Life Sciences in Transition (Business Horizons, Vol. 53)," is being mailed this week to subscribers and also online at https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/journal/00076813.
About Business Horizons
Business Horizons is a bimonthly journal, published by Elsevier on behalf of the IU Kelley School of Business, under the leadership of editor Catherine M. Dalton. The editorial aim is to publish original articles of interest to business academicians and practitioners. Articles cover a wide range of topical areas within the general field of business, with emphasis on identifying important business issues or problems and recommending solutions that address these. The Business Horizons Special Issue is an initiative of the Center for the Business of Life Sciences (CBLS), which was founded three years ago by the Kelley School of Business under the leadership of Professor Emeritus Lawrence S. Davidson. Included in the mission of the CBLS is the encouragement and promotion of faculty research and special projects in the business of life sciences.
About Elsevier
Elsevier is a world-leading publisher of scientific, technical and medical information products and services. The company works in partnership with the global science and health communities to publish more than 2,000 journals, including The Lancet and Cell, and close to 20,000 book titles, including major reference works from Mosby and Saunders. Elsevier's online solutions include ScienceDirect (www.sciencedirect.com), Scopus (www.scopus.com), Reaxys (www.reaxys.com), MD Consult (www.mdconsult.com) and Nursing Consult (www.nursingconsult.com), which enhance the productivity of science and health professionals, and the SciVal suite (www.scival.com) and MEDai's Pinpoint Review (www.medai.com), which help research and health care institutions deliver better outcomes more cost-effectively.
A global business headquartered in Amsterdam, Elsevier (www.elsevier.com) employs 7,000 people worldwide. The company is part of Reed Elsevier Group PLC, a world-leading publisher and information provider, which is jointly owned by Reed Elsevier PLC and Reed Elsevier NV.
