Is chiropractic care primary health care?

The following paper sets out to examine three issues: primary health care, chiropractic care, and the challenges to both in the next decade. The current crisis of primary health within the health care system provides chiropractic with an opportunity to choose between functioning as primary care or primary contact care. Chiropractic has seldom met its potential, or its own rhetoric, with regard to holistic health care which would make the case for being primary health care much stronger. There have been numerous social and political factors that have influenced this but part of the problem is that chiropractic has failed to clearly articulate itself as primary health care, and in some instances, has denied that it was. New opportunities and challenges will force chiropractors to resolve the issue of whether chiropractic is a general model of health care, or a form of health specialty (the neuromusculoskeletal practitioner verses the primary health practitioner).     

Financing health care for all--is national health insurance the first step?

Political changes are likely to lead to demands for a more equitable health care system. It will be necessary to pay for more health care for more people without a substantial increase in the resources available. If a substantial proportion of the funds continue to come from private sources, then inequity in access to and the distribution of health care is inevitable. Consequently, it is argued that this can best be achieved if the resources that are available to pay for health care are controlled by a single, centralised co-ordinating body. It is suggested that it will be more feasible to generate sufficient funds under central control through taxation supplemented by a national health insurance scheme, rather than through simply expanding the contribution to health care that comes out of general tax revenue. Given that private ownership of health care facilities and services is likely to continue for the foreseeable future, central control of the funding of health care will make it possible to regulate the private sector, and bring it into a national health plan to provide health care for all.     

Models of care for co‐morbid diabetes and chronic kidney disease

Diabetes and chronic kidney disease (CKD) are two of the most prevalent co‐morbid chronic diseases in Australia. The increasing complexity of multi‐morbidity, and current gaps in health‐care delivery for people with co‐morbid diabetes and CKD, emphasize the need for better models of care for this population. Previously, proposed published models of care for co‐morbid diabetes and CKD have not been co‐designed with stake‐holders or formally evaluated. Particular components of health‐care shown to be effective in this population are interventions that: are structured, intensive and multifaceted (treating diabetes and multiple cardiovascular risk factors); involve multiple medical disciplines; improve self‐management by the patient; and upskill primary health‐care. Here we present an integrated patient‐centred model of health‐care delivery incorporating these components and co‐designed with key stake‐holders including specialist health professionals, general practitioners and Diabetes and Kidney Health Australia. The development of the model of care was informed by focus groups of patients and health‐professionals; and semi‐structured interviews of care‐givers and health professionals. Other distinctives of this model of care are routine screening for psychological morbidity; patient‐support through a phone advice line; and focused primary health‐care support in the management of diabetes and CKD. Additionally, the model of care integrates with the patient‐centred health‐care home currently being rolled out by the Australian Department of Health. This model of care will be evaluated after implementation across two tertiary health services and their primary care catchment areas.     

Physician opinion of the privatization of health care services in Canada: a survey of Canadian urologists by the Canadian Urological Association Socioeconomic Committee

Introduction:

Canadian health care policy faces unprecedented pressures to reform. With new advances in health care technologies and treatments, proven difficulties in obtaining timely access to necessary health care and the realities of limited fiscal resources sinking in, the status quo is being challenged with the increased role of privately funded health care. To assess the opinions of Canadian urologists on privatization of health care in Canada, the Socioeconomic Committee of the Canadian Urological Association (CUA) surveyed all active members on their beliefs on the role and impact private health care should have in urology.

Methods:

We emailed a short survey of 9 questions proposed by the CUA Socioeconomic Committee regarding private health care delivery to all active CUA members in April 2007. We received responses by email, fax or mail over a 1-month period.

Results:

Of the 440 emails sent out, 90 surveys were returned. Respondents believed that a parallel private heath care system would shorten wait times and improve access to care (74%), improve outcomes for those with private health care (58.8%), would not impair the outcomes of those without private health care (74.2%) and would not interfere with the accessibility of health care for most Canadians (73.3%). Most respondents (91.1%) believed that, if privately delivered health care was allowed, urologists should spend a fixed amount of time providing services within the public health care system as well.

Conclusion:

This survey on Canadian urologists’ beliefs on the role and impact private health care should have in urology indicated that most respondents anticipate a growing influence of private health care and advocate for a regulated fixed proportion of service dedicated to the public system.     

Health care quality in end-of-life care: promoting palliative care in the intensive care unit

Seminal articles published in the late 1990s instigated not only an intense interest in health care quality but also a new era of research into quality end-of-life care, particularly in intensive care units (ICUs). ICUs can improve health care quality at the end of life by better using palliative care services and palliative care-related principles. This article details how the interest in health care quality has spurred a similar interest in end-of-life and palliative care in ICUs, defines palliative care and describes how it improves health care quality, and highlights barriers to the incorporation of palliative care in ICUs.     

Emergency care in South Asia: challenges and opportunities

One of the striking deficiencies in the current health delivery structure is lack of focus on emergency care in primary health systems, which are ill-equipped to offer appropriate care in emergency situations resulting in a high burden of preventable deaths and disability. Emergency medical systems (EMS) encompass a much wider spectrum from recognition of the emergency, access to the system, provision of pre-hospital care, through definitive hospital care. The burden of death and disability resulting from lack of appropriate emergency care is very high in low- and middle-income countries. In South Asia, health services in general, and emergency care in particular, have failed to attract priority, investments and efforts for a variety of reasons. It has to be emphasized that integrating EMS with other health system components improves health care for the entire community, including children, the elderly, and other vulnerable groups with special needs. Out-of-facility care is an integral component of the health care system in South Asia. EMS focuses on out-of-facility care and also supports efforts to implement cost-effective community health care. There is a possibility of integration of other health services and programmes with an innovative, cost-effective EMS in the region.     

The next stage in the health care economy: aligning the interests of patients,providers, and third-party payers through consumer-driven health care plans

This article reviews employers' attempts over the past 25 years to address the cost and accessibility of health care services for their employees and the effect these efforts have had on U.S. health care delivery. The difficulties in aligning the interests of all parties in a third-party health beneficiary contract are examined. Many employers are considering consumer-driven health care plans as an alternative to managed care plans to both control health care costs and improve employee satisfaction. Such plans differ from fee-for-service and managed care models in terms of the economic alignment of the parties. Consumer-driven plans align the employer's economic interest with the employee/patient, and reduce health benefit costs by providing information, tools, and direct economic incentives to employees for self-management of health care dollars. Because these incentives are designed to reduce the consumption of services, providers are the party left out of economic alignment under the consumer-driven model.     

The current state of health care reform: the physicians' burden

Congress has passed expansive legislation to "fix" health care. US health care, however, is not "broken"; rather, it functions according to purpose. The legal standard sets health care's purpose as high-quality care, not care at a pervasive quantity or low cost. Juries focus on quality irrespective of cost, and the court's concern is not cost but whether the defendant physician has met the standard of care. As the US health system does deliver high-quality (albeit high-cost) care, it is not broken; instead, the system that defines it is broken. The legal system defines the standard of care as the care that an average physician would deliver under similar circumstances. As 91% of physicians admit to practicing defensively excessive care, the legal care standard is therefore excessive care. However, the new health care legislation passed by Congress does not address tort reform. Instead, it reduces physician remuneration and increases penalty-driven cost care control regulations. Caught between a care standard that demands high quality regardless of cost and penalty-driven federal mandates demanding low-cost care regardless of the legal care standard, physicians bear the new law's ultimate burden. US health care should not continue to focus on quality over cost and quantity; more important, the law should not continue to dictate that it do so. Rather, the system must import cost-effective care, and the law must so direct. To reduce health care costs, the legal system must first recognize a standard of care that respects cost-or tort reform that protects those physicians who do.     

JCAHO accreditation considerations for the home care WOC nurse.

Driven by competition and by pressure from managed care groups, home health care organizations are increasingly choosing to seek the accreditation offered by the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations (JCAHO). WOC nurses practice in a variety of health care settings, including home health care. Many home health care organizations are now accredited, or they will choose to become accredited in the future. This article reviews home care accreditation standards as set forth by JCAHO and the possible impact of the standards on individual WOC home care nursing practice.     

Commentary: Measuring Quality of Care in Osteoporosis

We know improving the quality of care in osteoporosis is an important goal. We have made some strides toward measuring quality of osteoporosis care, focusing on process measures regarding care that is provided. Unfortunately, improving care as measured by these process measures does not always yield improved outcomes. We need to hold health care providers and health care systems responsible not only for health care production but for production of health and well-being. However, there is a multiplicity of factors that will need to be considered to make this next step.     

Edgar J. Poth Memorial Lecture: Lessons learned inside the Beltway: one surgeon's encounters with health care policy

Our health care system continues to undergo transformation in a context of extreme financial pressures. New models of care delivery and financing challenge us to rethink our practices as individual surgeons and as system participants. Understanding the fiscal realities of health care and how we are perceived by health care policy makers can help us to be meaningful participants in channeling reform to create better delivery systems for our patients. This article presents some background information about health care in America with a focus on government programs, and shares insights from my health care policy colleagues.     

The evolution of financial incentives in the U.S. health care system

The U.S. health care system continues to evolve toward value-based payment, rewarding providers based upon outcomes per dollar spent. To date, payment innovation has largely targeted primary care, with little consideration for the role of surgical specialists. As such, there remains appropriate uncertainty surrounding the optimal role of the urologic oncologist in alternative payment models. This commentary summarizes the context of U.S. health care reform and offers insights into supply-side innovations including accountable care organizations and bundled payments. Additionally, and importantly, we discuss the implications of rising out-of-pocket health care expenditures giving rise to health care consumerism and the implications therein.     

Clinical pathways and case management in anesthesiology

Clinical Pathways and the Case Management represent clinical and management tools for organizing patient care. These tools focus on results and use a multi-disciplinary approach, with the goal of providing high quality, cost effective care. Both systems require the care providers to interact with the institution or the health care network. As health care is part of a refund system, the specialist must cooperate with personnel of other disciplines as a member of a team which works together to improve the quality of health care, while containing the costs. The Clinical Pathways and the Case Management are two tools for achieving these goals. The most important limit of a cost control system is the division split of health care into single components instead of considering the entire diagnostic course. Without doubt, the Disease Management appears to be the most effective control system of health care costs now available.     

Gesundheitssystem im Umbruch

The German health care system is faced with enormous challenges: population ageing, more chronic diseases and multimorbidity. The fragmentation of medical care into disconnected parts-ambulant and clinical services, pharmaceutical provision, nursing care etc.-is inefficient and inhibits coordinated courses of treatment. Instead of this new types of organizational structures and processes are needed. By means of different health care acts the German government has supported innovative medical care structures for many years. In the meantime, 30,000 doctors have joined 400 physician networks. Their aims are to improve the coordination of services, to facilitate collaboration among providers and to ensure better health care to the population. Furthermore, those interdisciplinary networks are crucial prerequisites for integrated health care. But there is still a lot of work to do. The successful integration of the components of health care into functioning process chains depends on political, economic and sociocultural parameters.     

Heilverfahren der gesetzlichen Unfallversicherung

This study concerns the processes of medical health care in the context of statutory accident insurance. Four kinds of injuries are focused on. The study addressed the following aims: to analyse medical health care processes, to identify heterogeneous medical health care processes in the context of the same type of injury, to determine predictors of process and outcome quality of the health care processes, and to evaluate the relevance of rehabilitation management with regard to efficacy and efficiency. The study is based on the mandatory standardised reports of the therapists and institutions involved in the health care processes.     

涉县43所托幼机构儿童健康状况分析

目的分析评价县级幼儿园内学前儿童健康状况及保健管理情况,探索山区县级学前儿童保健管理新模式。方法采取问卷调查和对2011年规范的健康体检资料进行系统分析。结果儿童入托体检率达81％,异常发生率为71．72％;视力异常发生率为32．62％;龋齿发生率为49．81％。保教人员上岗体检率达70％;专兼职保健医4人。结论县级学龄前集居儿童保健状况令人担忧,规范县级学前儿童入园健康体检和保健管理任务依然很艰巨。     

Medical conglomerates

Community hospitals is undergoing rapid consolidation into network of private corporations providing health care services. So, the industrialization of health care lead to mega corporate health care. The multi-nationalization of U.S. multi-health care systems as HCA or Humana, has began at the end of the 70. The impact of this phenomena on the French health care system will be important. In order to protect technological independence and to integrate physicians into medical industrial complex, we have to create european multi-health systems.     

A broader view of marketing: implications for surgeons

The health care sector of the economy is changing. There is unprecedented growth in the health care sector, and competitive forces have a more prominent role. In addition, consumers have become more informed and as a result, more empowered. Patients in the health care sector are no exception to this trend. As patients become more informed, it is imperative that health care providers become more effective at marketing their services. In general, physicians typically have received little training in the field of marketing, which results in potentially limited understanding of the key marketing issues being faced in today's health care environment. We identify and examine several key marketing issues critical to the success of health care providers in today's environment. Further, we offer some managerial recommendations designed to address each of these issues.     

1993 health care reforms at the state level: an update

Health care system reform was one of the foremost political issues throughout 1993. While the Clinton Administration developed and proposed a national reform plan, many states enacted laws that call for altering the way in which health care is delivered to their residents. The following article examines health care reform legislation that was enacted at the state level in 1993. It focuses on managed competition plans, plans that seek to expand access to health insurance or to control health care expenditures, and plans that are aimed at reforming Medicaid and other state programs. Because so many states considered or enacted some type of health care reform legislation in 1993, this article provides an overview of the more significant reforms that became law, but it is not intended to serve as a comprehensive review of all state-level health care reforms.     

Nursing interventions for urinary incontinence in home health.

Urinary incontinence (UI) is a significant health care issue among older patients in the acute care, extended care, and home care settings. With the shift toward health care delivery in the home setting, it is becoming increasingly necessary for home health care professionals to become knowledgeable about the causes, assessment, and treatment. This article will review the epidemiology, causes, assessment, and management of UI in the home care setting. Emphasis is placed on the role of the WOC nurse as coordinator of a multidisciplinary team providing care of the home bound patient with UI.