In April 2006, Massachusetts enacted a comprehensive health care reform bill that seeks to move the state to near universal insurance coverage. The bill included expanded eligibility for public coverage, subsidized insurance, market reforms, requirements for employers, and, most controversial, an individual mandate. A study of the early impacts of the state's initiative found evidence of a subs...

Based on the principles of primary health care as outlined by WHO / UNICEF at the Alma Ata conference, in the Soviet Union in 1978, many developing countries including India, have been formulating organizing and experimenting with primary health care (PHC) programmes both in the public and private voluntary sectors. So far in India, the Government’s centralized health care services using modern...

In recent years, the focus on comparative effectiveness research (CER), the funding available to support it, and the range of possible effects of CER policy on academic health centers (AHCs) have increased substantially. CER has implications for the research, education, and clinical care components of AHCs' missions. The current funding and policy environment have created specific opportunities...

This paper analyses the paradigm shift from the disease to the person with the disease against the background of the changes of health systems toward primary health care. The structural changes from hospital to the community and the specialist to the generalist approach are essential to enable this different approach. As a consequence, any assessment of health status, risks, and needs starts wi...

With the ongoing debate over health care reform in the United States, public health and policy makers have paid growing attention to the need for comparative effectiveness research (CER). Recent allocation of federal funds for CER represents a significant move toward increased evidence-based practice and better-informed allocation of constrained health care resources; however, there is also hea...

Informed consent represents a cornerstone of the endeavours to make health care research ethically acceptable. Based on experience of qualitative research on power dynamics in nursing care in acute psychiatry, we show that the requirement for informed consent may be practised in formalistic ways that legitimize the researcher's activities without taking the patient's changing perception of the ...

objective one of the prominent microorganisms in several reports of nosocomial infections is staphylococcus aureus (s. aureus) which is carried by several health care workers (hcw) many times throughout the day. the present investigation was conducted to assess the nasal and hand carriage rate of s. aureus amongst medical personnel of loghman hakim hospital's toxicological intensive care unit (...

background and objectives: spirituality and spiritual care, as essential components of holistic nursing care, are widely recognized, while spiritual aspect is still overlooked. spirituality has been associated with the caregiver’s sense of well-being and ability to cope. the aim of this study was to determine attitude of intensive care nurses toward spirituality and spiritual care and its relat...

to estimate the prevalence and analyze factors associated with both public and private health services utilization in women population in a western district of iran.a cross-sectional study with 1200 individuals aged 18-49 years carried out in different districts of sanandaj city, western iran, in 2012. the main outcome variable was use of health service in the previous 12 months. the in-depende...

the burden of exposure to blood-borne pathogens (such as hepatitis b and c viruses) is considerable for health care workers. hepatitis virus transmission requires a non-immune host, an infectious source, and skin or mucous membrane injury. these three aspects are the main fields for preventional interventions. we reviewed major recent studies on this topic to identify precautions health care wo...