Scotland is a small nation within the United Kingdom (UK) that has recently had a high degree of autonomy over health policy, such that it has adopted a very different direction, not only from England, but also many other health systems around the world. Under a narrative of mutuality, Scottish health policy is based on partnership; working across government, health and social care services, pr...

The US has resumed its journey toward nearly universal healthcare insurance with the recent passage of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, rightly labelled a healthcare insurance reform bill, with other things tucked into it. Within minutes of signing, however, multiple states announced intentions to derail the legislation through the courts, asserting that it violates the US Consti...

After the People's Republic of China was founded in 1949, urban people who worked for the government and its enterprises were offered free healthcare. This benefit continued after their retirement. Due to the characteristics of socialism, a large majority of the urban population were included in this free healthcare system. The past 16 years, however, have seen a dramatic change in this coverag...

a s the U.S. healthcare system anticipates the requirements of legislated healthcare reform, front and center is the challenge of improving the U.S. healthcare value equation—the need to improve the value received for the health dollar spent. As is often the case, the psychology of change is at play here, whereby humans turn to what they know best as a response. As many health system leaders fa...

THERE IS LITTLE DISAGREEMENT about the directions public health reform should take — greater emphasis on primary and preventive care, workforce reform, community participation, improved governance and better application of information technology. It is clear that there are gaps and duplication in clinical services that reflect outdated population patterns and jealously guarded clinical territor...

this brief discusses the policy implications of a research study commissioned by health workforce australia (hwa) within its health workforce innovation and reform work program. the project explored conceptually complex and operationally problematic concepts related to developing a whole-of-workforce competency-based education and training and competency-based career framework for the australia...

neil lunt and russel mannion provide an overview of the current state of the medical tourism literature and propose areas for future research in health policy and management. the authors also identify the main unanswered questions in this field ranging from the real size of the medical tourism market to the particular health profiles of transnational patients. in addition, they highlight unexpl...

BACKGROUND Many developed countries are reforming healthcare payment systems in order to limit costs and improve clinical outcomes. Knowledge on how different groups of professional stakeholders trade off the merits and downsides of healthcare payment systems is limited. METHODS Using a discrete choice experiment we asked a sample of physicians, policy makers, healthcare executives and resear...

pierre-gerlier forest and his colleagues make a strong argument for the need to expand policy capacity among healthcare actors. in this commentary, i develop an additional argument in support of forest et al view. forest et al rightly point to the need to have embedded policy experts to successfully translate healthcare reform policy into healthcare change. translation of externally generated i...