In this commentary, we discuss our thoughts on the future of healthcare reform in the United States. While public discourse on healthcare reform still focuses on the federal government and the Affordable Care Act, including the possibility of repeal, we argue that states are poised to continue the momentum started by the federal government. Implementation of Medicaid expansion, Delivery System ...

Cost-containment in healthcare spending has become a central issue in public policy and healthcare reform, especially as the affordable care act adds millions of people to public and private insurance rolls. In this climate, longstanding criticism of pharmaceutical pricing has grown sharper, and many in both policy and medicine have characterized the costs of newly developed drugs as both exorb...

Primary healthcare nurse practitioners (PHCNPs), also known as family or all-ages nurse practitioners, are the fastest growing advanced practice nursing role in Canada. All 10 provinces and three territories now have legislation that authorizes their role. Their introduction is linked to countrywide health reform efforts to improve the accessibility and quality of primary healthcare.

American healthcare is the most expensive in the world, yet its system still struggles with uneven quality, serious access gaps, and population health indicators that lag behind most of the developed world. Healthcare is becoming increasingly unaffordable for a growing segment of Americans, and if recent spending trends persist, the system could collapse under its own weight. Congressional prop...

We discuss a systems engineering approach for comprehensive reform of the healthcare system of the United States. The goal is to improve both the quality and cost performance of the entire healthcare system when compared to other leading industrialized nations. We identify three main sources of variability impacting both the healthcare system performance and total costs, and propose how to addr...

Healthcare professionals in South Africa (SA) are facing challenging times. As the clinical negligence claims environment in SA deteriorates, the impact is being felt by healthcare professionals, but also by the wider public owing to the strain that costs place on the public purse. The authors look at the current claims environment, and explain why a debate about reform is so important.

the lack of health human resources is a global issue. china also faces the same issue, in addition to the equity of human resources allocation. with the launch of new healthcare reform of china in 2009, have the issues been improved? relevant data from china health statistical yearbook and a qualitative study show that the unequal allocation of health human resources is getting worse than before.

Whatever the final shape of healthcare reform, providers and sponsors are already collaborating with each other in various network arrangements. As they pursue these arrangements, they are asking questions about their role in a reformed system and whether the networks they participate in will strengthen their mission and ministry. Documents published about five years ago by the Catholic Health ...

CONTEXT Over one year after passage of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA), legislators, healthcare experts, physicians, and the general public continue to debate the implications of the law and its repeal. The PPACA will have a significant impact on future physicians, yet medical student perspectives on the legislation have not been well documented. OBJECTIVE To evaluate m...