Creating a Patient-Led NHS (Department of Health & National Health Service, 2005) reaffirmed the strategic aim of the National Health Service (NHS) to be patient centred, making it clear that the old tradition of ‘doing to patients’ was no longer acceptable. Instead, the fundamental relationship between patient and clinician, and equally between patients and the NHS writ large, is to be based o...

BACKGROUND Consumers are increasingly exposed to comparative healthcare information (information about the quality of different healthcare providers). Partly because of its complexity, the use of this information has been limited. The objective of this study was to examine how the amount of presented information influences the comprehension and use of comparative healthcare information when imp...

India is at crossroads with a commitment by the government to universal health coverage (UHC), driving efficiency and tackling waste across the public healthcare sector. Health technology assessment (HTA) is an important policy reform that can assist policy-makers to tackle inequities and inefficiencies by improving the way in which health resources are allocated towards cost-effective, appropr...

BACKGROUND Disease burden of malaria in Papua New Guinea (PNG) is the highest in Asia and the Pacific, and prompt access to effective drugs is the key strategy for controlling malaria. Despite the rapid economic growth, primary healthcare services have deteriorated in rural areas; the introduction of non-professional health workers [village health volunteers (VHVs)] is expected to improve antim...

BACKGROUND Readmission rates are projected to serve as quality measures that have the potential to negatively impact hospital and physician reimbursement. Individual physicians and hospitals are developing plans to reduce readmission rates. Successful plans should be based on specific data obtained from each individual type of practice. OBJECTIVE To analyze the etiological factors responsible...

and people with permanent prostheses. its increased resistance to antibiotics has created a serious challenge for healthcare system. this study was conducted to determine the pattern of antibiotic-resistance of s. epidermidis isolates from clinical samples.   methods :   during nine months, 251 clinical samples isolated from strains of s. epidermidis were examined. following identification of i...

Discrete choice experiments (DCEs) are increasingly used for studying and quantifying subjects preferences in a wide variety of healthcare applications. They provide a rich source of data to assess real-life decision-making processes, which involve trade-offs between desirable characteristics pertaining to health and healthcare and identification of key attributes affecting healthcare. The choi...

OBJECTIVE To compare sociodemographic and motivational factors for healthcare use and identify desirable health-promoting resources among groups in a low socioeconomic status (SES) community in Chicago, IL. BACKGROUND Disparities in health services and outcomes are well established in low SES urban neighborhoods in the United States and many factors beyond service availability and quality imp...

BACKGROUND In the Netherlands in 2006, a health insurance system reform took place in which regulated competition between insurers and providers is key. In this context, the government placed greater emphasis on patients being able to choose health insurers and providers as a precondition for competition. Patient choice became an instrument instead of solely a goal in itself. In the current stu...