Health policy
-
The influence of the financial crisis on the efficiency of Greek public hospitals has been widely debated. Despite this increasing interest in such research, the question of to what extent the recent reforms in the Greek National health care system were effective in establishing a health care structure and process that provide better results for patients has yet to be fully investigated. As a step in this direction, the paper focuses on patient's experience with public hospital care quality before and during the economic crisis. ⋯ The findings reveal that public hospital service quality is at a medium level (66.2 on a scale from 1 to 100) over 2007-2014, presenting a decreasing trend during the recession. Policies to address the crisis may have contributed to a reduction in hospital expenditures, but at the same time patients were increasingly dissatisfied with the technical care. Consequently, there is a need for reforms aimed at the achievement of productivity gains, responsibility, and transparency in the management of productive resources, by enabling health organisations to reduce their costs without a deterioration in the quality of care.
-
The Dutch Euthanasia Act (EA) took effect in 2002 and regulates the ending of one's life by a physician at the request of a patient who is suffering unbearably. According to the Dutch Supreme Court, unbearable suffering is a state for which the presence of a medical condition is a strict prerequisite. As a consequence, the Dutch EA has attributed the assessment of unbearable suffering to physicians who evaluate the presence of a medical classifiable disorder. ⋯ This debate is crucial for policy-makers and an international audience because it discusses if a self-directed death of older people, should be implemented in (the current Dutch) euthanasia practice. However, this article argues that the current legal proposal that regulates the tired of living euthanasia request ignores crucial jurisprudence on physicians' application of the unbearable suffering criterion in practice. Furthermore it points out that this proposal neglects physicians role in guaranteeing a euthanasia practice of due care and that its use of an ethic of absolute autonomy could jeopardize this well-established practice.
-
Studies have demonstrated the strong association between increased end-of-life homecare nursing use and reduced acute care utilization. However, little research has described the utilization patterns of end-of-life homecare nursing and how this differs by region and community size. ⋯ Differences in end-of-life homecare nursing use are much larger between provinces than between community sizes.
-
We studied the effects of incentive payments to primary care physicians for the care of patients with diabetes, hypertension, and Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) in British Columbia, Canada. We used linked administrative health data to examine monthly primary care visits, continuity of care, laboratory testing, pharmaceutical dispensing, hospitalizations, and total h ealth care spending. We examined periods two years before and two years after each incentive was introduced, and used segmented regression to assess whether there were changes in level or trend of outcome measures across all eligible patients following incentive introduction, relative to pre-intervention periods. ⋯ Total hospitalizations and hospitalizations via the emergency department did not change. Health care spending increased for patients with hypertension. This large-scale incentive scheme for primary care physicians showed some positive effects for patients with hypertension, but we observe no similar changes in patient management, reductions in hospitalizations, or changes in spending for patients with diabetes and COPD.
-
The rise of multi-morbidity constitutes a serious challenge in health and social care organisation that requires a shift from disease- towards person-centred integrated care. The aim of the current study was to develop a conceptual framework that can aid the development, implementation, description, and evaluation of integrated care programmes for multi-morbidity. ⋯ The framework structures relevant concepts in integrated care for multi-morbidity and can be applied by different stakeholders to guide development, implementation, description, and evaluation.