OBJECTIVES In 2009, the Chinese government launched a national healthcare reform programme aiming to control healthcare expenditure and increase the quality of care. As part of this programme, a new drug pricing reform was initiated on 1 June 2015. The objective of this study was to describe the changing landscape of drug pricing policy in China and analyse the potential impact of the reform. ...

The United States (U.S.) healthcare system is facing a crisis of unprecedented proportions. Unsustainable healthcare inflation coupled with unexplainable variations in quality of care, and rising numbers of unand underinsured patients have prompted calls for major healthcare reform from multiple stakeholders. Orthopaedic surgery remains at the center of the healthcare reform debate, with rising...

Faced with the challenges of healthcare reform, skills and new capabilities are needed to support the reform and it is of crucial importance in Africa where shortages affects the health system resilience. Edwards et al provides a good example of the challenge of implementing a mentoring program in one province in a sub-Saharan country. From this example, various aspects of strengthening the cap...

Few would deny the contentiousness of the ongoing healthcare reform debate in the United States. Referencing the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (P.L. 111–148), a recent article in Foreign Affairs noted that ‘‘no U.S. law has been more passionately opposed by Republicans.’’ Unsuccessful efforts to replace or repeal the Act keep coming, proposed and then voted down or withdrawn during...

Australia’s National Health and Hospital Reform Commissions e-health agenda has necessitated an improvement in our understanding of the factors impacting the intention to adopt integrated information systems. This imperative is echoed by OECD health ministers and forms the focus for the ministerial meeting schedule for October 2010, ‘Health Priorities in the Aftermath of the Crisis’. This paper...

The Healthcare 2010 conference at the Omni New Haven Hotel at Yale in April focused on how different stakeholders in the healthcare industry can excel in light of the recent landmark health-reform bill. A session titled "Maintaining Efficiency and Quality in an Ever Changing System" provided valuable insights into several perceptions of these two tenets, with respect to both the current state o...

Although the Institute of Medicine of the USA has recommended elements for healthcare reform, the optimal means for incorporation of these elements into a healthcare setting remain undefined. A process for the implementation of potentially better practices is described that incorporates a computerized medical record into an evidence-based, multidisciplinary continuous quality improvement effort...

Background Patients’ satisfaction is an indirect indicator of patients acceptance towards health management by healthcare providers. Healthcare reform of any magnitude needs to determine their external clients’ feedbacks measured through healthcare satisfaction. This study aimed to determine the level of patients’ satisfaction and its influencing factors toward the newly reformed national healt...

The healthcare industry is changing, posing challenges to Medicare-certified home healthcare agencies (HHAs). With healthcare reform and the 2011 prospective payment system changes, including reduction in reimbursement to agencies, it is imperative to assess an organization's wound care program. HHAs must provide quality care at lower costs, using evidence-based medicine that may include nontra...