Handbook of Systems and Complexity in Health

1. Complexity in Health - An Introduction.- 2. Complexity, uncertainty and mess as the links between science and the humanities in healthcare.- Part 1 - Complexity Theory and Methods.- 3. Understanding Complex Systems.- 4. The Complex Nature of Knowledge.- 5. Mathematical Principles: Tales of Tails.- 6. Modelling.- 7. A methodology for the analysis of medical data.- 8. Psychological Rhythmicities.- 9. Modeling Illness and Recovery with Nonlinear Dynamics.- Part 2 - Dynamics in Human Health.- 10. Homeostasis: The Dynamic Self-regulatory Process that Maintains Health and Buffers against Disease.- 11. Fractals in Physiology & Medicine.- 12. Bio-complexity: challenging reductionism.- Part 3 - Concepts of Health.- 13. Trying to Make Sense of Health.- 14. Picture Health.- 15. Health - A personal complex-adaptive state.- 16. Understanding Health By Building Better Bio-Medical Models.- 17. Health - a systems and complexity based definition.- Part 4 - Clinical Application.- 18. Complexities of the Consultation.- 19. Inflammation through a Psychoneuroimmunological Lens.- 20. Diabetes control: insights from complexity science.- 21. Complexity and the onset of psychosis.- 22. Understanding intimate partner violence through its dynamics.- 23. Multi-level interdependencies and constraints in panic disorder: Many triggers, few responses.- 24. Nonlinear Relations of Cardiovascular Risk Factors to Neuropsychological Function and Dementia.- 25. Pain and Complex Adaptive System Theory.- 26. Complexity in Movement Disorders: A Systems Approach to Intervention.- 27. Avoidable hospitalizations in older adults.- 28. Continuous Multiorgan Variability Monitoring in Critically Ill Patients - Complexity Science at the Bedside.- Part 5 - Health Services.- 29. An overview of complexity theory: understanding primary care as a complex adaptive system.- 30. Real-time Analytics and Quality of Care.- 31. Medical Sociology and Case-Based Complexity Science: A User's Guide.- 32. The Drug

Joachim P Sturmberg MBBS, DORACOG, MFM, PhD, FRACGP I am Adjunct A/Prof of Monash University, Melbourne, and Conjoint A/Prof of General Practice in the Department of General Practice in the Department of General Practice, General Practice, The Newcastle University, Newcastle, Australia. I am a graduate from Lübeck Medical School, Germany, where I also completed my PhD. Since 1989 I work in an urban group practice on the NSW Central Coast, with a particular interest in the ongoing patient-centred care of patients with chronic disease and the elderly. In 1994 I started to pursue systems and complexity research with an inquiry into the effects of continuity of care on the care processes and outcomes. Since then my research has expanded and includes the areas of understanding the complex notion of health, health care and healthcare reform, showing that health is an interconnected multi-dimensional construct encompassing somatic, psychological, social and semiotic or sense-making domains, that health care has to embrace the patient's understanding of her health as the basis for effective and efficient care, and that an effective and efficient healthcare system ought to put the patient at the centre. I am joint chief editor of the Forum on Systems and Complexity in Medicine and Healthcare in the Journal of Evaluation in Clinical Practice. Together with Carmel Martin and Jim Price I chair the Complexity SIG in WONCA.

Carmel C Martin MBBS, MSc, PhD, MRCGP, FRACGP, FAFPHM I am Visiting Academic Department of Public Health and Primary Care, Trinity College, Dublin, and an Associate Professor of Family Medicine at the Northern Ontario School of Medicine. I am active in clinical general practice with a particular interest in chronic disease and illness and patient centered care and integrated care using information technology, informed by complex adaptive systems theories. I am an Australian medical graduate from the University of Queensland. I completed my Masters in

From the book reviews:
"The book has appeal for health professionals including practitioners, educators, researchers, policy makers, and health administrators, as well as graduate students. ... It acknowledges a new role for educators -- to shake up ideas and to introduce students to networks, connections, and the contexts in which health occurs -- to instill a passion for lifelong learning. These features set this book apart and make it a welcome addition to the healthcare policy literature." (Carole Ann Kenner, Doody's Book Reviews, January, 2015)