Our chapter in the 2003 Handbook of Health Communication. Here’s the first paragraph:
Health organizations are among the largest, most complex, technologically rich, and value-infused of any human arrangement. As such, the field of health and medical care in North America—and indeed the world over—provides a diverse and dynamic arena for communication and organizational research. The organizations we refer to as health organizations today include forms whose structures have changed little in one hundred years, such as hospitals. But health organizations also include forms that proliferate today but barely existed one hundred years ago, such as HMOs, hospice, and prepaid multi-specialty medical groups. It is therefore appropriate that we turn our attention to these changing settings.
