Acknowledgments

Like everyone else, I stand on the shoulders of giants in my field who have gone before me (and some who have gone with me). I always like to acknowledge them for their assistance and friendship over the years. It is important to be thankful; it is also humbling to work with a lot of people smarter than myself. Some of them are already mentioned in the Preface. They include (in historical order):

• James Coleman, Ed Laumann, Charles Bidwell, Odin Anderson, and Ron Andersen at the University of Chicago

• Steve Shortell, who mentored me for years and agreed to work with me and Ron Andersen on some of my early publications on physician-hospital relationships

• Helen Ingram at the University of Arizona, who awarded me a full-year grant to study the Arizona Health Care Cost Containment System (AHCCCS)—Arizona’s Medicaid program—making me 1 of 4 professors who constituted the initial class of “Udall Fellows”

• Howard Zuckerman at Arizona State University (and later the University of Washington), who, along with Ron Andersen, invited me to join their research team studying the early integrated delivery networks (IDNs) that were members of the Center for Health Management Research (CHMR)

• Jeff Alexander and Mike Morrisey, who invited me to join their research team studying IDNs with the Prospective Payment Assessment Commission (ProPAC)

• Gloria Bazzoli at the Hospital Research and Educational Trust (HRET), who asked me to join her in studying IDNs using data from the American Hospital Association

• My Wharton colleague Mark Pauly, who agreed to work with me every few years studying IDNs, price transparency, accountable care organizations (ACOs), and (most recently) B.S. in healthcare

• Other healthcare economists, such as David Dranove, Frank Sloan, Jamie Robinson, Marty Gaynor, Roger Feldman, Bob Town, Lorens Helmchen, and Guy David, who (for some unknown reason) like to work with a sociologist like me

• My Wharton colleagues Harbir Singh, Anjani Jain, Jagmohan Raju, and Ziv Katalan, who facilitated my global immersion and study of the healthcare systems in India and China

• Industry executives and consultants, such as Ralph Muller, Jack Lord, Jeff Goldsmith, Adam Fein, and Brad Fluegel, who have taught me a lot about hospital systems, integrated healthcare, managed care, and the pharmaceutical supply chain

I also owe a great deal of thanks to (1) Joanne Levy, at the Leonard Davis Institute (LDI) at Penn; (2) Richard Bogue at HRET, who awarded me a full-year fellowship to study IDNs; (3) Tom D’Aunno and Jon Chilingerian, who entered the field of healthcare management at the same time I did, joined me in the junior faculty consortium at the Academy of Management (where we all met), and have worked with me occasionally; (4) Tim Hoff, who nominated me to receive the Keith Provan Distinguished Research Award from the Academy of Management; and (5) a host of Wharton doctoral students (Larry van Horn, Steve Walston, Bob DeGraaff, Gilbert Gimm, Andrew Lee, Mike Housman, Adam Powell, Aditi Sen, Ambar LaForgia, and Steve Schwab) who ably served as my research and teaching assistants and have since gone into academia.

I need to acknowledge the incredible help and support from Kay Conerly, Senior Editor - Medical at McGraw-Hill. Kay was an enthusiastic backer of this book from the beginning, and offered so many good ideas on how to improve it. I have thoroughly enjoyed my collaboration with her in getting this volume to press. I also need to acknowledge the great assistance provided by her colleagues, Revathi Viswanathan, Client Services Manager, and Karunakaran Gunasekaran, Senior Permissions Manager—both at KnowledgeWorks Global Ltd.—who helped with the copy-editing, galley proofs, and the copyright permissions. I also thank Annie Yu for allowing me to use her original artwork as the cover image of this book, as well as Jennifer Pryll who helped to get this image formatted.

I also want to thank several industry executives and colleagues who took the time to read various chapters in this book and offer some judicious edits. These include: Mike Taylor (Chapter 15); Steve Wood and Kirk Twiss at Clear View Solutions, attorney Mark Joffe, and Professor Mark Pauly (Chapter 19); David Blumberg (Chapter 21); and Eric Schmidt (Chapter 22). I have learned a lot from these gentlemen over time; apparently, I am not yet done learning. Any remaining errors in these chapters are mine, not theirs.

I owe special thanks to Tina Horowitz, my administrative assistant, who is a marvel and a professor’s dream. An attorney by training, she has carefully edited several of my prior books, dug up the obscure studies I needed to reference, created many of my PowerPoint slides, kept me organized for class, and proofread this entire textbook. Don’t even think of hiring her away.

Finally, my family has played a huge role in the foregoing. My wife Alexandra has patiently put up with me over 40 years of marriage and been a constant source of love, support, and encouragement. She also taught me by example what it means to be Christian. At the same time, she and her family (all from Greece) comprise my “big fat Greek in-laws,” a continual source of culture clash with my Canadian and Scottish roots. I have just completed 4 decades of postmerger integration with her. I also want to give a “shout out” to my son Brendan, who (like my wife) is a lot smarter than me. He will be the first to tell you. He was the one who encouraged me to write this book. Like my dad, I am glad I listened to him.