Background In recent years, accreditation of private hospitals followed by decentralisation of the Italian National Health Service (NHS) into 21 regional health systems has provided a good empirical ground for investigating the Tiebout principle of “voting with their feet”. We examine the infra-regional trade-off between greater patient choice (due to an increase in hospital services supply) an...

Preventing the spread of multidrug-resistant Gram-negative bacteria (MDRGNB) is a public health priority. However, the definition of MDRGNB applied for planning infection prevention measures such as barrier precautions differs depending on national guidelines. This is particularly relevant in the Dutch-German border region, where patients are transferred between healthcare facilities located in...

This paper describes the collaborative partnership between European regions with the objective of developing a secure information network for the advancement of healthcare and humanitarian aid work. The basis for the project is the EU i2010 Initiative (European Information Society for Growth and Employment (June 2005)). The aims and objectives of EU i2010 are to ensure that European business, g...

Introduction Waiting lists in Canada have been a highly symbolic issue to people on both sides of the U.S.-Canada border. For those who support privatization of the Canadian healthcare system, the waiting lists speak to a vast lack of healthcare delivery capacity in the public system. Such lists, they argue, would be minimized by moving towards a two-tiered system of care in which the public sy...

This paper discusses whether European institutions should devote so much attention and funding to cross-border healthcare or they should instead prioritise guaranteeing universal health coverage (UHC), "addressing inequalities" and tackling the effects of austerity measures. The paper argues through providing the evidence in both areas of research, that the priority at European level from a pub...

Introduction / objectives Resistant bacteria pose more and more a risk to patient safety in Europe, especially in cross-border regions where differences in antibiotics prescription and hygiene policies exist. Antibiotic Stewardship Programs (ASPs) have been implemented in some hospitals to facilitate healthcare professionals in adequately prescribing antibiotics to improve patient safety and to...

The concurrent circumstances of an increasingly mobile workforce, disparities in access to healthcare, and the ability to deliver care through technology (e.g., telehealth) present the need and the opportunity for practice across state borders. Over the past four years, the Federation of State Boards of Physical Therapy (FSBPT) has explored professional licensure models that will allow cross bo...

A wave of Haitian immigration into Brazil began in February 2010 through three northern border states: Acre, Rondônia, and Amazonas. Focusing on the state of Amazonas, the article uses an ethnographic approach to explore the social networks involved in this immigrant issue and examines how Brazil’s Sistema Único de Saúde (SUS) responded to the demands placed by this unexpected contingent of new...