the key argument of this commentary is that patient choice has a broader meaning than suggested by consumerist choice models. in increasingly marketized health care systems with diversified and knowledge-based service arrangements, patients are continuously obliged to choose insurers, physicians or hospitals and treatments—whether they like it or not. however, health care users refer to a wide ...

there is an emerging consensus that caring and compassion are under threat in the frenetic environment of modern healthcare. enabling and sustaining compassionate care requires not only a focus on the needs of the patient, but also on those of the care giver. as such, threats and exhortations to health professionals are likely to have limited and perverse effects and it is to the organisational...

The healthcare system is undergoing rapid transformation as national policies increase patient access, reward positive health outcomes, and push for an end to the current era of episodic care. Advances in health sensors are rapidly moving diagnostic and monitoring capabilities into consumer products, enabling new care models. Although hospitals and health care providers have been slow to embrac...

Increasing health care costs mandate a shift in our thinking about health and disease from treatment to prevention. Effective prevention requires that we improve our abilities to predict and personalize health and disease risks. The article proposes that systems biology will play an essential role in personalized health assessments.

professor naoki ikegami’s “fee-for-service payment – an evil practice that must be stamped out” summarizes many of the failings of alternatives to fee-for-service (ffs) payment systems. his article also offers several suggestions for improving ffs systems. however, even powerful arguments against many of the alternatives to ffs, does not make a convincing argument for ffs systems. in addition, ...