BACKGROUND This paper explores the nature and reasoning for (dis)trust in Australian public and private hospitals. Patient trust increases uptake of, engagement with and optimal outcomes from healthcare services and is therefore central to health practice, policy and planning. METHODS A qualitative study in South Australia, including 36 in-depth interviews (18 from public and 18 from private ...

BACKGROUND Private general practitioners in Malaysia largely operates as solo practices - prescribing and supplying medications to patients directly from their clinics, thus posing risk of medication-related problems to consumers. A pharmacy practice reform that integrates pharmacists into primary healthcare clinics can be a potential initiative to promote quality use of medication. This model ...

Wealth-related inequity in the use of maternal healthcare services continues to be a substantial problem in most low- and middle-income countries. One strategic approach to increase the use of appropriate maternal healthcare services is to encourage the expansion of the role of the private sector. However, critics of such an approach argue that increasing the role of the private sector will lea...

Three big risks for hospitals under healthcare reform are: The inevitable deficit reduction initiatives beginning in FFY12. The estimated one-third increase in Medicaid enrollment. The dramatic increase in regulation of private health insurance.

The following article is an edited version of a paper presented to the joint Australian Private Hospitals Association and Australian Healthcare Association Conference, 'Caring with Skill', held at Southport, Queensland, on 7-8 April 1998.

This study aimed to explore the perceptions and knowledge of prescribers towards adherence to standard treatment guidelines for type II diabetes in two cities of Pakistan; Islamabad (national capital) and Rawalpindi (twin city). A comparative, cross sectional study design was used to evaluate the knowledge and perceptions of prescribers regarding adherence to standard treatment regimen for type...

The World Health Assembly passed a resolution on the importance of engaging with the private health sector. However, the reality is that universal health coverage aspirations are particularly challenging when there is a significant private health sector. This sector in South Africa suffers from rapidly increasing costs, inflation and volume of services (unnecessary medical tests or treatments)....

Demographic changes, technological developments and rising expectations require the analysis of public-private primary care (PC) service provision to inform policy makers. We conducted a descriptive, cross-sectional study using the dataset of the Maltese arm of the QUALICOPC Project to compare the PC patients' experiences provided by public-funded and private (independent) general practitioners...