Although the policy of the separation of dispensing from the medical practice (SDMP) has been promoted by the Department of Health (DOH) in Taiwan for many years, it has never been significantly successful. Instead of transferring prescriptions to the insurance-contracted pharmacy (ICP) in the community, most of the patients still fill their prescriptions in the hospital or clinic. This is beca...

We present a hospital non-price competition model to investigate two important concerns when a global budgeting system is applied to the expenditure cap policy and the expenditure target policy. Our results indicate that (1) the treadmill effect, (describing a phenomenon whereby health care providers provide more health care services with a lower reimbursed price under the expenditure cap polic...

BACKGROUND People with a mental illness experience a higher burden of smoking-related disease. Smoke-free policies in mental health facilities provide an opportunity to reduce smoking-related harms for patients and staff alike. Limited evidence regarding the effect of such policies on preventing smoking in mental health facilities has been reported. The aims of this study are to describe the ex...

OBJECTIVE To audit physicians' adherence to the local antibiotic policy guidelines in government hospitals in Kuwait. MATERIALS AND METHODS The study was a retrospective review of patient records in nine hospitals between July 1 and December 31, 2008. Clinical notes and medication charts of the latest hospital admissions were checked for antibiotic prescribing. On the audit form, aspects of t...

This article examines (i) the background and debate over cost shifting; (ii) hospitals as business institutions that often shift the financial responsibility for their costs in the form of differential pricing; and (iii) how the cost-shifting debate affects and is affected by Medicare. The aim is to gain a better understanding of how changes in reimbursement by large government health insurance...

BACKGROUND The Australian Private Health Insurance Incentive (PHII) policy reforms implemented in 1997-2000 increased PHI membership in Australia by 50%. Given the higher rate of obstetric interventions in privately insured patients, the reforms may have led to an increase in surgical deliveries and deliveries with longer hospital stays. We aimed to investigate the effect of the PHII policy int...

BACKGROUND Influenza vaccination among nonhospital healthcare workers (HCWs) is imperative, but only limited data are available for factors affecting their compliance. OBJECTIVE To examine the factors influencing influenza vaccine compliance among hospital and nonhospital HCWs. Design and Setting. A vaccine compliance questionnaire was administered to HCWs working in myriad healthcare setting...

OBJECTIVE Seasonal influenza is a significant cause of morbidity and mortality in the United States each year. Healthcare worker (HCW) influenza vaccination is associated with both decreased absenteeism among employees and improved outcomes among patients. However, HCW influenza vaccine uptake remains suboptimal. The objective of this study was to characterize HCWs' understanding of and respons...