NetLibrary September E-Book of the Month

Flatlined, an Insider’s Guide to Resuscitating American Medicine, is September eBook of Month

Flatlined lifts the veil of secrecy on twenty-first century health care and delves into the realities of good people caught in a bad medical system. Dr. Guy L. Clifton, a practitioner as well as a policy advocate, reveals first-hand accounts of needless tragedy, such as the young man who died after a car wreck for lack of a bed in a qualified hospital and the surgeon who was dejected by the scarcity of resources needed to enable him to perform heart surgery on an uninsured man.

Arguing that a lack of coordinated care and quality medical practice benchmarks result in high levels of redundancy and ineffectiveness, Clifton proposes that the key to reducing health care costs, improving quality, and financially protecting the uninsured, is to reduce wastefulness, and offers a solution for achieving success.

Flatlined sounds the warning call: By 2018 Medicare and Medicaid will consume about one-third of the federal budget. American businesses now pay three times as much of their payroll for health care as global competitors, a figure that is expected to worsen as health care grows at twice the rate of the U.S. economy. Based on his years of experience in policy and medicine, Clifton offers an attainable solution through the development of an American Medical Quality System.

Provided through the generous support of Rutgers University Press, Flatlined will be available to Jarrett Library users September 1-30. For more information about NetLibrary or other services available through Jarrett Library, please contact your librarian.

About the Author:
Guy L. Clifton, M.D. is a neurosurgeon, clinical investigator, administrator, and health policy advocate. He is the Runnells Distinguished Professor of Neurosurgery at the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston and has been frequently included in Best Doctors of America. A 2006–2007 Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Health Policy Fellow, he is now devoting himself full-time to health policy reform.