The ability to work with professionals from other disciplines to deliver collaborative, patient-centred care is considered a critical element of professional practice requiring a specific set of competencies. However, a generally accepted framework for collaborative competencies is missing, which makes consistent preparation of students and staff challenging. Some authors have argued that there...

This study examined the loss of productivity and health risk status associated with employees who provide care for an ill dependent. A total of 16,651 employees (23% response rate) of a major financial services company completed a confidential Health Risk Appraisal (HRA) that included an eight-item version of the Work Limitations Questionnaire and a self-report of time missed from work during t...

The status of ethical considerations in the provision of health care has undergone a substantial evolution over the past 50 years. This development was partially a response to particular abuses of human rights that had occurred in the name of health research,* 1 but it was also a manifestation of the wider consumer rights movement that arose in a number of countries over the same time period. T...

While a health outcomes approach has the potential to improve the health status of Australians as well as health service efficiency, such a policy will be successful only if practice at the local level follows suit. This paper briefly reviews the health outcomes approach and describes how the Central Sydney Area Health Service has established a Needs Assessment & Health Outcomes Unit to help im...

The current emphasis on preventive health care and wellness services suggests that measures of skills and competencies needed to effectively navigate the health care system need to be better defined. We take an expanded perspective of health literacy and define it as a set of skills used to organize and apply health knowledge, attitudes and practices relevant when managing one's health environm...

Pakistan has undergone massive changes in its federal structure under the 18th Constitutional Amendment. To gain insights that will inform reform plans, we assessed several aspects of health-systems performance in Pakistan. Some improvements were noted in health-systems performance during the past 65 years but key health indicators lag behind those in peer countries. 78·08% of the population pa...

The roles of the international standard-setting bodies that are mandated to facilitate safe trade, such as the World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE), the Codex Alimentarius Commission, the International Plant Protection Convention and the World Trade Organization, are well documented, as are the roles of the international organisations responsible for global health issues: the OIE, the Wor...

This article looks at a disagreement that emerged at an international human rights conference between health professionals and human rights activists. The disagreement centred on the scope of the responsibilities of health professionals in relation to potential systemic human rights violations. In this article, the nature of the disagreement that emerged at the conference is explored. It is fir...

This article presents the results of research on a systematic approach to the assignment of primary care work in the Veterans Health Administration. Based on a functional job analysis protocol, the study identified overlap in the performance of primary care tasks among multiple occupational groups as prima facie evidence of opportunities to reallocate work responsibilities. Results show that re...

OBJECTIVE To explore stakeholders' acceptance of criteria for setting priorities for the health care system in Uganda. METHODS A self-administered questionnaire was used. It was distributed to health workers, planners and administrators working in all levels of the Ugandan health care system. It was also distributed to members of the public. Participants were asked how strongly they agreed or...