BACKGROUND The main challenge in the context of health care reforms and priority setting is the establishment and/or maintenance of fairness and standard of care. For the political process and interdisciplinary discussion, the subjective perception of the health care system might even be as important as potential objective criteria. Of special interest are the perceptions of academic discipline...

BY DOUGLAS A. HASTINGS S en. Kent Conrad (D-N.D.) complained last week that the press had done a disservice to the country by virtually ignoring in its coverage of the health care reform bills the important payment and delivery system reform provisions. Now that the fate of comprehensive federal reform is uncertain, health care providers should not make the same mistake. Indeed, the loss of mom...

A new telephone health advice service implemented in September 2000 is integral to the Capital Health (Edmonton) Region's strategy to build a comprehensive approach to primary healthcare. Capital Health Link operates 24 hours a day, seven days a week and was the first comprehensive nurse-based health advice phone line in Alberta.

Although some methods for eliciting preferences to assist participatory priority setting in health care in developed countries are available, the same is not true for poor communities in developing countries whose preferences are neglected in health policy making. Existing methods grounded on self-interested, monetary valuations that may be inappropriate for developing country settings where co...

BACKGROUND Healthcare system reform of Sanming city has become a leading healthcare reform model in China. It has developed a rigorous pharmaceutical reform consisted of the Zero Mark-up Drug Policy and the Centralized Procurement of Medicine Policy to bring down drug expenses and total health expenditures. However, despite the credit and much attention have been given to Sanming's pharmaceutic...

This paper examines the health status of women in China by reviewing levels and trends of female mortality at several phases of a woman's life cycle focusing on infancy girlhood, childbearing and old age. The mortality rates of Chinese women and men are compared for the period 1950-1990 as are comparisons with women in selected countries. The cause-specific death rate, expressed as a percentage...

China's excellent community health system was seriously damaged during the early years of economic reform after 1982, and its reconstitution has become a major policy goal of the government since 1996. This article provides a brief overview of experiences in implementing the policy of community health care in a large Chinese city, Tianjin. I outline the policy setting and describe Tianjin's exp...

China is the second largest TB epidemic with the most number of people infected with multi-drug resistant (MDR). Over the past decade, a large number of TB control projects have been funded by the government of China and international organizations, and epidemic in China has been effectively controlled. However TB control in China still faced many challenges. Strategies to address these challen...