Although integrated healthcare networks (IHNs) are promoted in Latin America in response to health system fragmentation, few analyses on the coordination of care across levels in these networks have been conducted in the region. The aim is to analyse the existence of healthcare coordination across levels of care and the factors influencing it from the health personnel' perspective in healthcare...

BACKGROUND Following the introduction of elements of managed competition in the Netherlands in 2006, General Practitioners (GPs) and patients were given the role to select treatment hospital using public quality information. In this study we investigate to what extent hospital preferences of GP's are affected by performance indicators on medical effectiveness and patient experiences. We selecte...

Any Willing Provider and Freedom of Choice laws restrict the ability of managed care entities, including pharmacy benefit managers, to selectively contract with providers. The managed care entities argue this limits their ability to generate cost savings, while proponents of the laws suggest that such selective contracts limit competition, leading to an increase in aggregate costs. We examine t...

Managed bees are critical for crop pollination worldwide. As the demand for pollinator-dependent crops increases, so does the use of managed bees. Concern has arisen that managed bees may have unintended negative impacts on native wild bees, which are important pollinators in both agricultural and natural ecosystems. The goal of this study was to synthesize the literature documenting the effect...

As a group, people with disabilities or chronic conditions experience higher-than-average health care costs and have difficulty gaining access to affordable private health insurance coverage. While the Americans with Disabilities Act will enhance access by prohibiting differential treatment without sound actuarial justification, it will not guarantee equal access for people in impairment groups...

This paper addresses the question: Did the implementation of managed competition in Ontario increase turnover in home care agencies? This question is addressed through a case study analysis of the impacts of tendering on the exiting home care labour force from three non-profit home care agencies during the period 1997 to 2001 in a mid-sized city in Ontario. These agencies provided 85% of the ma...

This paper explores how the concept of ‘community policing’ has been understood and implemented in Tanzania. Whilst community policing is locally considered to be a very effective means of preventing crime and improving neighbourhood safety, the extent to which it constitutes a more accountable, responsive or ‘democratic’ form of policing, as assumed by proponents, is questionable. Based on res...

s in other industrialized countries, the health care sector is an important element of the Netherlands’ economy. As a share of gross domestic product (GDP), national health expenditures in the Netherlands rose from 6 percent in 1970 to 8.2 percent in 1980 (23). The growth rate slowed in the 1980s; by 1991, national health expenditures accounted for only a slightly higher share of GDP at 8.3 per...

In 1996, a newly elected government in the Province of Ontario, Canada, introduced a managed competition environment into the home care sector through the establishment of a competitive contracting process for home care services. Through 65 in-depth, semi-structured interviews conducted between November 1999 and January 2001, we trace the implementation of this competitive contracting policy wi...