Virtual technologies have the potential to mitigate a range of challenges for health care systems. Despite the widespread use of mobile devices in everyday life, they currently have a limited role in health service delivery and clinical care. Efforts to integrate the fast-paced consumer technology market with health care delivery exposes tensions among patients, providers, vendors, evaluators, ...

Changes in use of health services by the uninsured, when covered after health reform, are a key to the costs of reform. From data on persons under age sixty-five in the 1989 National Health Interview Survey, we estimated their expected use of hospitals (excluding obstetric deliveries) and doctor visits, adjusting for age, sex, and self-reported health status. If uninsured persons obtained priva...

EDITORIAL Methods to evaluate services The health care of elderly people takes place in a variety of settings: primary; secondary; and tertiary care, and now 'intermediate care'. It covers acute and chronic conditions, as well as preventative, curative and restorative and palliative services, which can be simple or complex. These need to be evaluated to help purchasers, providers and patients m...

BACKGROUND The aim of this study was to assess accessibility to health care services and the needs of the population and demands on the health service in the areas most affected by the current crisis in the former Yugoslavia. The delivery of health care services and problems in its realization and the status of the population's health in the crisis period (from the second half of 1993 to the en...

The articles featured in this issue are focused on health topics that are important to improving the health of women across the life span. Cancer and other chronic diseases will need to continue to be the focus for research efforts in the future. However, additional research on women's health must go beyond the biomedical model and encompass issues related to the cultural aspects of health. fur...

Introduction The aim of this article is to discuss Continuous Professional Development (CPD) in the context of the NHS in the UK. CPD as a process is seen as a major mechanism on the agenda of reform in the NHS and therefore exploring the question of how CPD is perceived by staff can provide insights into the changing dynamics of the employment relationship in particular staffing and profession...

background informal payments for health care, which are common in many countries, can have negative effects on health care access, equity and health status as they lead people to forgo or delay seeking care, or to sell assets to pay for care. many countries are putting reforms in place with the aim of reducing informal payments. in order to be successful, such policies should be informed by the...

background & aim: prenatal care is a key strategy for achieving public health goals, primary healthcare objectives, and the millennium development goals. the aim of this study was to investigate the factors influencing the use of prenatal care services in order to design suitable interventions and promote the use of these services. methods:in this systematic quantitative literature review, stud...

OBJECTIVE This paper discusses whether educating health professionals and undergraduate students in culturally respectful health service delivery is effective in reducing racism, improving practice and lessening the disparities in health care between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal Australians. APPROACH The paper supports the concept of race as a social construction that is discursively produce...

Physicians must be ready to assume an active role in the design, implementation, and improvement of emerging models of health care delivery. Knowledge and skill in continuous improvement prepare them to engage seriously in the processes of change, on the basis of the same scientific principles they always have relied on in the use of evidence to improve outcomes. This includes include the abili...