Nosocomial or hospital acquired infections are a major challenge for low and middle income countries (LMICs) which have limited healthcare resources. Risk factors include the lack of appropriate hospital facilities such as isolation units, bed space, and sinks; inadequate waste management, contaminated equipment, inappropriate use of antibiotics and transmission of infection from the hands of h...

President Obama has recently announced an additional $50 billion to support the development of healthcare informatics and electronic patient records systems. Public attention has, therefore, focused on ensuring that such investments do not suffer from the failures that have jeopardised patient safety in previous large-scale software procurements. This paper analyzes recent failures that have af...

It is estimated that between $600 and $850 billion annually is lost to fraud, waste, and abuse in the US healthcare system, with $125 to $175 billion of this due to fraudulent activity (Kelley 2009). Medicaid, a state-run, federally-matched government program which accounts for roughly one-quarter of all healthcare expenses in the US, has been particularly susceptible targets for fraud in recen...

Healthcare-associated infection is a major safety issue affecting the quality of care of hundreds of millions of patients every year in both developed and developing countries. To meet the goal of ensuring patient safety across healthcare settings around the globe, the World Health Organization launched the World Alliance for Patient Safety in October 2004. Healthcare-associated infections were...

Proponents of accountable care organizations (ACOs) – consortia of hospitals and physicians that take responsibility for the cost and quality of care – assert that ACOs have the potential to improve patient health while reducing the waste in the healthcare system. But, for the fledgling ACOs to gain traction and begin to achieve that potential, they must build a new kind of technological infras...

The management of healthcare waste requires a sustained and holistic approach involving range parties. This is challenging for governments, especially in developing countries, where systems have limited capacities addressing the issue. Using Saudi Arabia as case study, this paper followed multi-method approach, including policy analysis, observation, semi-structured interviews, focus group, to ...