BACKGROUND In 2009 the Australian government announced a major program of reform with the move to primary maternity care. The reform agenda represents a dramatic change to maternity care provision in a society that has embraced technology across all aspects of life including childbirth. METHODS A critical discourse analysis of selected submissions in the consultation process to the national r...

The health care system in Pakistan is beset with numerous problems--structural fragmentation, gender insensitivity, resource scarcity, inefficiency and lack of functional specificity and accessibility. Faced with a precarious economic situation characterized by heavy external debt and faltering productivity, Pakistan's room to maneuver with health sector reform is quite limited. Although the re...

Massachusetts' experience with health care reform may be predictive of the effects of national health care reform. Data on employment in the health care industry were examined to determine the impact of the Massachusetts reform on the state's health care workforce.

The time is now. Over the past decade, health care providers have heard about the unprecedented redesign of the health care system. With the presidential election fast approaching, waves of uncertainty are swirling around the Affordable Care Act. No matter the outcomes of the November elections and their impact to the health care reform bill, there are sustainable aspects that will continue to ...

Market-based health care reform during democratic transition in Bosnia and Herzegovina was complicated by the 1992-1995 war, that devastated the country and greater part of its health care infrastructure. The course of the transition and consequences of war for the health system and health professionals are presented here from the perspective of the author. The description of real-life situatio...

Although primary care is fundamental to health system performance, the United States has undervalued and underinvested in primary care for decades. This brief describes how the Affordable Care Act will begin to address the neglect of America's primary care system and, wherever possible, estimates the potential impact these efforts will have on patients, providers, and payers. The health reform ...

and regions within the U.S., and specific systems of care has shown that health systems built on a solid foundation of primary care deliver more effective, efficient, and equitable care than systems that fail to invest adequately in primary care.i, ii However, some policy analysts have questioned whether these largely cross-sectional, observational studies are adequate for making inferences abo...

This paper aims at contextualizing the Brazilian Psychiatric Reform by reviewing theoretical and practical milestones in the country's policies. Theses, dissertations, papers published in a database (Scielo), books on the theme, and official documents (conference reports, laws, bills) published between 1990 and 2007 were studied. The results show the advances and challenges of the Psychiatric R...

BACKGROUND In 2008 reforms were introduced in primary care in Stockholm County Council to increase patient choice. These reforms included changes to the reimbursement system from one that was primarily based on need-weighted capitation system (75%) to a system largely based on fee-for-service (60%) and freedom of establishment of primary care clinics. The new reimbursement system created incent...

Primary care, a cornerstone of several health reform efforts, is believed by many to be in a crisis because of inadequate supply to meet future demand. This belief has focused attention on the adequacy of primary care physician supply and ways to boost access to primary care. One suggested approach is to raise Medicare fees for primary care services. Whether higher Medicare fees would increase ...