Patient hospital choice reform in Norway was introduced in 2001. Waiting times for treatments at hospitals were published, and patients and their physicians were able to select hospitals for services. We develop a model of patient response, and study the empirical impact of the reform. Our data set consists of hospital admission information between 1999 and 2005, as well as hospital and area ch...

BACKGROUND Public hospitals have come under heavy scrutiny across the world owing to rising expenditures. However, much of the focus has been on cutting down costs to raise efficiency levels. Although not denying the importance of efficiency measures, this article targets a performance issue that is relevant to address the quality of services rendered in public hospitals. Thus, it is important ...

a central problem in designing effective models of provider governance in health systems has been to ensure an appropriate balance between the concerns of public sector and/or government decision-makers, on the one hand, and of non-governmental health services actors in civil society and private life, on the other. in tax-funded european health systems up to the 1980s, the state and other publi...

Purpose: The quality of medical services provided by competing public hospitals is the primary consideration of the public in determining the selection of a specific hospital for treatment. The main objective of strategic planning is to improve the quality of public hospital medical services. This paper provides an introduction to the history, significance, principles and practices of public ho...

Public hospitals play an important role in the delivery of essential healthcare in Australia as in many countries. The Australian Government has in the recent years implemented national healthcare reform to improve the performance of and access to public hospital services. This reform extends to all public hospitals including remote hospitals. However, there is limited information on how reform...

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A soft budget constraint arises when a government is unable to commit to not 'bailout' a public hospital if the public hospital exhausts its budget before the end of the budget period. It is shown that if the political costs of a 'bailout' are relatively small, then the public hospital exhausts the welfare-maximising budget before the end of the budget period and a 'bailout' occurs. In anticipa...