Rising healthcare spending has led to an increase in calls for ways to reduce the cost of healthcare. Amid the debate on the best approach on cut costs in the healthcare system, one of the few bipartisan provisions is the need to integrate modern technology into the storage and transfer of medical records. Current attempts to establish such electronic medical records are challenged by concerns ...

The challenge to provide a nation-wide healthcare service continues unabated in the 21st century as politicians and managers drive through policies to modernize the UK National Health Service (NHS). Established around 60 years ago to offer free healthcare at the point of delivery to all citizens, the NHS now accounts for the largest portion of public expenditure after social security, with tota...

Introduction The use of healthcare delivery systems is very limited. Primarily in India public sector hospitals does not use any system for managing their health records to provide continued care to patient. The central and state governments are responsible for the provision of primary healthcare in the country. A spending of 1% of the GDP (effectively about Rs 1050 per capita) on public health...

OBJECTIVES Japan has a universal healthcare system, and this paper describes the reality of the healthcare services provided, as well as current issues with the system. METHODS Academic, government, and press reports on Japanese healthcare systems and healthcare guidelines were reviewed. RESULTS The universal healthcare system of Japan is considered internationally to be both low-cost and e...

Such an alarming statement has not been challenged---in fact it is even more widely accepted today. Indeed, throughout wealthy countries (Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development) we hear the same kind of systemic problems: • many doctors are disgruntled, overworked and professionally unsatisfied; • nurses are restless and in short supply; • popular demands for more health spending...

This Executive Summary presents the results of an extensive economic report (Economic Report) commissioned by the American Hospital Association (AHA) and conducted by Margaret Guerin-Calvert and Economists Incorporated to: (1) evaluate empirical studies conducted on behalf of the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association (BCBSA) that examine factors that increase healthcare spending, and (2) asses...

This study explores the characteristics of Medicare-only beneficiaries and Medicare-Medicaid dual eligibles in comparison, assess what factors determine the dual eligibility status, and examine the association between dual eligibility status and home healthcare service use. Using retrospective observational study of the U.S. 1996-2000 Medical Expenditure Panel Survey, we find that dual eligible...

OBJECTIVES Although critical care physicians view obesity as an independent poor prognostic marker, growing evidence suggests that obesity is, instead, associated with improved mortality following ICU admission. However, this prior empirical work may be biased by preferential admission of obese patients to ICUs, and little is known about other patient-centered outcomes following critical illnes...

We revisit the fundamental question of Bitcoin's security against double spending attacks. While previous work has bounded the probability that a transaction is reversed, we show that no such guarantee can be effectively given if the attacker can choose when to launch the attack. Other approaches that bound the cost of an attack have erred in considering only limited attack scenarios, and in fa...

Cryptocurrencies are a type of digital currencies that are relying on cryptographic proofs for confirmation of transactions. Cryptocurrencies usually achieve a unique combination of three features: ensuring limited anonymity, independence from central authority and double spending attack protection. No other group of currencies, including fiat currencies, has this combination of features. We wi...