OBJECTIVES Determining private doctors' (PD) knowledge and practice regarding tuberculosis (TB) control issues and exploring the availability of TB drugs in private pharmacies (PP) in a low incidence setting in Argentina (Santa Fe). METHODS A questionnaire was applied to random sample of 87 PPs and 61 PDs, proportionally assigned according to the local distribution of specialists and general ...

Objectives Determining private doctors’ (PD) knowledge and practice regarding tuberculosis (TB) control issues and exploring the availability of TB drugs in private pharmacies (PP) in a low incidence setting in Argentina (Santa Fe). Methods A questionnaire was applied to random sample of 87 PPs and 61 PDs, proportionally assigned according to the local distribution of specialists and general pr...

BACKGROUND Private sector health facilities are diverse in nature, and offer widely varying quality of care (QOC). OBJECTIVES The study aimed to describe the QOC provided to febrile children at rural private clinics on the Kenyan coast and stakeholder perspectives on standards of practice and opportunities for change. METHODS Data collection methods were structured observations of consultat...

OBJECTIVE To assess the risk prevalence of overweight and obesity in children enrolled in private and philanthropic preschools in the State of São Paulo. METHODS Comparison of two cross sectional studies with children enrolled in private preschools (PPS) or philanthropic (PHP) of the São Paulo Metropolitan Region. Both surveys evaluated the children's environment. To determine the risk of ove...

BACKGROUND In South Asia a large number of patients seek treatment for TB from private practitioners (PPs), and there is increasing international interest in involving PPs in TB control. To evaluate the feasibility, effectiveness and costs of public-private partnerships (PPPs) for TB control, a PPP was developed in Lalitpur municipality, Nepal, where it is estimated that 50% of patients with TB...

The implementation of the prospective payment system (PPS) in Medicare has raised concerns in both the public and private health sectors about the potential for compromised quality of care resulting from the financial incentives inherent in the system. As part of this concern, Congress has mandated annual reports from the Health Care Financing Administration (HCFA) on the impact of PPS, includi...

Children's hospitals have been excluded from the Medicare prospective payment system (PPS) because of concerns over the applicability of the DRG case-mix system and PPS payment weights to pediatric hospitalization. Nevertheless, DRG-based payment systems are being adopted by State Medicaid agencies and private third-party payers, and the Health Care Financing Administration has been mandated to...

BACKGROUND The importance of early intervention approaches for the treatment of attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) has been increasingly acknowledged. Parenting programmes (PPs) are recommended for use with preschool children with ADHD. However, low 'take-up' and high 'drop-out' rates compromise the effectiveness of such programmes within the community. METHODS This qualitative s...