If you were taking on a care coordinator role at University Hospital, what kind of information would you want to have? Do you like the idea of an unstructured role that you can develop on your own? What are the advantages and disadvantages of this kind of organizational ambiguity?

MINI CASE

Few industries are confronted with more change and more turbulence than the health care industry. As the perusal of any newspaper or news website will indicate, there is constant pressure on health care organizations to provide quality care in a cost-controlled environment that is characterized by ever-increasing regulation. This pressure can be seen most clearly in the advent of managed care during the 1980s and beyond. Managed care involves integrated and comprehensive systems of health care providers, insurance companies, and government programs, coordinated around specific care plans and guidelines designed to simultaneously enhance the quality of care provided, control the cost of that care, and maintain access to care for as many people as possible. As you might guess, its pretty much impossible to succeed in all three of these important goals of cost, quality, and access, but hospitals and other health care organizations keep on trying.