Coombs, Jan Gregoire 1933–

(Jan Coombs, Jan Gregoire)

PERSONAL:

Born April 6, 1933, in Springfield, MA; daughter of Stephen Edward and Eunice (Martel) Gregoire; married Guerdon Coombs (an endocrinologist); children: three. Education: University of Rochester School of Nursing, B.S., 1955.

ADDRESSES:

Home—Middleton, WI. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER:

Nurse, social worker, and medical historian. Wisconsin Coalition for Health, board member.

MEMBER:

Wisconsin Historical Society, Friends of Pheasant Branch (member of education committee; former president).

WRITINGS:

(Under name Jan Coombs) Living with the Disabled: You Can Help; A Family Guide, Sterling Publishing (New York, NY), 1984.

(Editor, under name Jan Coombs) SOS (Study on Suicide): Training Manual for Suicide Prevention and Intervention, and Suicide Survivor Support, Mental Health Materials Center (Bronxville, NY), 1990.

The Rise and Fall of HMOs: An American Health Care Revolution, University of Wisconsin Press (Madison, WI), 2005.

Contributor to periodicals, including Bulletin of the History of Medicine, Journal of Family History, Social History of Medicine, and Wisconsin Magazine of History.

SIDELIGHTS:

Medical and social issues have been a concern of Jan Gregoire Coombs's work for decades. In her 2005 book The Rise and Fall of HMOs: An American Health Care Revolution, she presents the results of her two studies of health maintenance organizations (HMOs). In one study she focused on a pioneering HMO in Wisconsin, the Greater Marshfield Community Health Plan; in the other she covered the history and development of HMOs and related politics and legislation. The book integrates information from the two studies into a comprehensive summary and analysis of the successes and subsequent failures of the HMO movement. Describing the work as "authoritative" in the International Journal of Integrated Care, Guus Schrijvers highlighted its "encyclopaedic scope and rich historical perspective." A Publishers Weekly critic remarked on the author's "gift for deciphering and articulating complex scenarios," and although observing that pages devoted to "arcane health-care legislation" might be difficult reading for laypeople, the writer maintained that the book "makes a critical contribution to medicine and its literature." More than one writer commented on the author's careful research and suggestions for possible solutions to problems in the health-care system. Lisa S. Patchner, reviewing The Rise and Fall of HMOs in the Journal of Sociology and Social Welfare, deemed the book "insightful." While Patchen found one point on which she disagreed with Coombs—"the book's assertion that the HMO movement not only contributed but created our current health care crisis"—she termed it "extremely helpful" and wrote that it "serves a valuable function in the thorough examination of a very complex subject."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Choice, January, 2006, J.E. Thompson, review of The Rise and Fall of HMOs: An American Health Care Revolution, p. 886.

International Journal of Integrated Care, January 15, 2007, Guus Schrijvers, review of The Rise and Fall of HMOs.

JAMA: The Journal of the American Medical Association, February 8, 2006, Renate Wilson, review of The Rise and Fall of HMOs, p. 697.

Journal of Legal Medicine, September, 2006, Philip A. Shelton, review of The Rise and Fall of HMOs, pp. 367-375.

Journal of Sociology and Social Welfare, December, 2006, Lisa S. Patchner, review of The Rise and Fall of HMOs, p. 202.

Library Journal, November 1, 1984, review of Living with the Disabled: You Can Help; A Family Guide, p. 2072.

New England Journal of Medicine, October 27, 2005, Patricia H. Born, review of The Rise and Fall of HMOs, p. 1868.

Publishers Weekly, February 7, 2005, review of The Rise and Fall of HMOs, p. 52.

SciTech Book News, June, 2006, review of The Rise and Fall of HMOs, p. 71.

ONLINE

WILL Public Media Web site,http://www.will.illinois.edu/ (January 11, 2007), David Inge, "The Rise and Fall of HMOs: An American Health Care Revolution," author interview.

Rise and Fall Home Page, http://webpages.charter.net/coombs (June, 2008).