Public health heresy: a challenge to the purchasing orthodoxy.

Research into purchasing health care: time to face the challenge.

Purchasing health care is at the core of the reforms of the UK NHS and yet there is little research evidence on which the policy is based. Research in this area is hampered by a lack of clarity over the aims of purchasing and the pace of change within the NHS. Purchasing developments such as general practice fund-holding are proceeding without a large scale evaluation of their impact. At a nati...

Public health medicine and purchasing health care.

PUBLIC HEALTH Health Technology: Challenge to Public Health

Health technology includes drugs, procedures, techniques, and equipment used by health professionals to provide health care, and the organizational and supporting systems within which the care is delivered. Such new technology may comprehend new drugs, new medical devices and appliances, new medical activities and surgical procedures, health promotion and disease prevention activities, and orga...

Commentary: Challenging public health orthodoxies—prophesy or heresy?†

In 1633, after many years of skirmishing with the Catholic Church over his support for Copernicus’ heliocentric theory of the universe, Galileo was finally sentenced by the inquisition to prison and religious penances. In a formal ceremony at the church of Santa Maria Sofia Minerva, he was forced to abjure his errors, and spent the rest of his life under house arrest in Sienna. The prophet had ...

#BlackLivesMatter--a challenge to the medical and public health communities.

and health departments to advance health equity. Afterward, a group of medical students approached me to ask what they could do in response to what they saw as an unjust decision and in support of the larger social movement spreading across the United States under the banner #BlackLivesMatter. They had staged “white coat dieins” (see photo) but felt that they should do more. I wondered whether ...