Preventing unplanned pregnancies and enabling women and couples to time their childbearing are central public health goals. Exercising this control is a goal of most individuals and has substantial benefits for the health of women and their children. Yet unplanned pregnancy also has societal-level connections to everything from basic demographic patterns to women’s educational attainment to fam...

The Republic of Ireland's Medico-Social Research Board spent over half of its £800,000 budget on setting up a hospital inpatient enquiry scheme because of a need "to study the cost effectiveness of health care". It emerged that in Ireland the number of hospital beds used daily per hundred thousand population was ten per cent higher than in Scotland mainly because Irish patients stayed in hospit...

Diagnosis Related Groups (DRGs) are currently being introduced on a national scale as a prospective reimbursement scheme in Swiss in-patient hospital care, replacing any remaining retrospective day-rate arrangements. DRGs are expected to promote transparency and efficiency while helping to contain health care costs. The governmental decision to introduce DRGs has caused considerable controversy...

This annual article presents information on health care costs by business, households, and government. Households funded 35 percent of expenditures in 1990, government 33 percent, and business, 29 percent. During the last decade, health care costs continued to grow at annual rates of 8 to 16 percent. Burden measures show that rapidly rising costs faced by each sponsor sector are exceeding incre...

Canadians place importance on the provision of universal health care and value their current scheme for the fact that distribution of services is based upon need rather than fault or income. However, to provide this level of service provincial and federal governments, of all political stripes, face a delicate balance of three constraints; cost of health care, cost of other income maintenance sc...

According to the 1976 Supreme Court case of Estelle v Gamble, the government is required to provide prisoners access to the necessary care for known, serious medical needs. Failure to do so violates the Eighth Amendment prohibiting the imposition of "cruel and unusual punishment." Currently, more than 2.5 million Americans are imprisoned, the highest per capita rate in the world. In the current...

With healthcare costs rising and healthcare value being emphasized, physicians now, more than ever, must capture and track patient care outcomes. Already burdened with electronic medical records, they must now collect outcomes data, as this information ultimately will be tied to reimbursement. Advances in Internet-based systems can facilitate the process. Not only is outcomes collection better ...

Promoting physical activity and sustainable transportation is essential in the face of rising health care costs, obesity rates, and other public health threats resulting from lack of physical activity. Targeted communications can encourage distinct population segments to adopt active and sustainable transportation modes. Our work is designed to promote the health, social, and environmental bene...

Julian Le Grand's case for saying that it would be equitable ifsmokers and smokers alone were to pay the costs ofsmoking-related health care is considered and found to be deficient. Should smokers (and smokers alone) pay the costs of smoking-related health care? No I shall suggest at least in contemporary Britain, they should not. I will consider the question with specific reference to the phil...

Dr. Milstein is the chief physician at Mercer Health and Benefits and medical director of the Pacific Business Group on Health — both in San Francisco. Dr. Smith is the president and chief executive officer of the California HealthCare Foundation, Oakland, CA. Wachter RM. The “dis-location” of U.S. medicine — the implications of medical outsourcing. N Engl J Med 2006;354:661-5. The globalizatio...