Critical Challenges for Health Care Reform in Europe / Edition 1

by Saltman, Constantino Sakellarides, Josep Figueras

Overview

This volume explores the central issues driving the present process of healthcare reform in Europe. More than 30 scholars and policy makers from various parts of Europe draw together the available evidence from epidemiology and public health, economics, public policy, organizational behaviour and management theory. Real world examples of policy making are used to lay out the options that health sector decision-makers confront.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780335199709
Publisher:	McGraw-Hill Companies, The
Publication date:	10/01/1998
Series:	State of Health Series
Pages:	442
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x 0.90(d)

Table of Contents

	Series editor's introduction	vii
	Foreword	ix
	Acknowledgements	xi
	List of contributors	xiii
	Introduction	1
Part I	The Context for Health Reform	21
1	Macroeconomic constraints and health challenges facing European health systems	23
Part II	Demand-Side Strategies	53
2	Balancing competition and solidarity in health care financing	55
3	The appropriate role for patient cost sharing	78
4	Priority setting and rationing health services	113
5	Reforming public health services	135
Part III	Supply-Side Strategies	155
6	Contracting models and provider competition	157
7	The allocation of capital and health sector reform	179
8	Performance-tied payment systems for physicians	196
9	Finance operating costs for acute hospital services	218
10	Changing hospital systems	236
11	Regulating expenditure on medicines in European Union countries	261
Part IV	On State, Citizen and Society	287
12	The role of the state in health care reform	289
13	Optimal balance of centralized and decentralized management	308
14	Citizen participation and patient choice in health reform	325
15	Values, norms and the reform of health care systems	339
Part V	Implementing Health Reform	363
16	Implementing health care reform: A framework for discussion	365
17	Implementing health care reform: A review of current experience	385
	Assessing the evidence	400
	Index	409

Editorial Reviews

A selection of 17 revised background papers commissioned by the World Health Organization Regional Office for Europe as part of an analysis of the challenges confronting national health policy decision makers in the second half of the 1990s. They contributed to policy recommendations made at the 1996 WHO conference in Ljubljana. They explore such avenues as macroeconomic constraints and health challenges, demand-side strategies such as balancing competition and solidarity in financing health care, and patient cost sharing; supply- side strategies such as contracting models and provider competition, and regulating expenditures on medicines; the roles of the state, citizens, and society; and implementing reform. A conclusion assesses the evidence presented. Distributed in the US by Taylor and Francis. Annotation c. by Book News, Inc., Portland, Or.

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