Health Reforms Across The World The Experience Of Twelve Small And Medium Sized Nations With Changing Their Healthcare Systems

This book presents the health reform experiences over the past three decades of twelve small and medium-sized nations that are not often included in international comparative studies in this field. The major conclusion of the study is that despite many similarities in policy goals, policy challenges and in the menu of policy options for countries that seek to offer universal coverage to their population, the health reforms of the nations in this book did not converge into one direction or model. However, we found several widespread policy experiences that are relevant for others, too.For example, user fees are unpopular everywhere. Governments often try to soften the consequences by exempting large groups of users, thus largely defeating the very purpose of those fees.As a second example, the introduction of new payment modes for medical care — like the shift from fee for service to case-based payment — took much longer than originally expected everywhere, and also failed to deliver their promises of improved transparency or efficiency gains A third example is that proposals are for universal coverage often ignore the challenges of implementing new financing models that elsewhere took decades if not centuries to develop.The conclusions contain both empirical findings and theoretical conclusions of interest to policy-makers and scholars of international comparison. It is accessible for academics, healthcare managers and students as well as a wider audience of readers interested in the changes in healthcare across the world.

The COVID-19 pandemic has led to radical transformations in the organisation and delivery of health and care services across the world. In many countries, policy makers have rushed to re-organise care services to meet the surge demand of COVID-19, from re-purposing existing services to creating new ‘field’ hospitals. Such strategies signal important and sweeping changes in the organisation of both ‘COVID’ and ‘non-COVID’ care, whilst asking more fundamental questions about the long-term organisation of care ‘after COVID’. In some contexts, the pandemic has exposed the fragilities and vulnerabilities of care systems, whilst in others, it has shown how services are organised to be more resilient and adaptive to unanticipated pressures. The COVID-19 pandemic presents a rare opportunity to examine empirically and to develop new theoretical frameworks on how and why health systems adapt to such unusual and intense pressures. International contributors consider how responses to COVID-19 are transforming the organisation and governance of health and care services and explore questions around strategic leadership at local, regional, national and transnational level. The book offers unique insight and analysis on the dynamics of policy-making, the organisation and governance of care organisations, the role of technologies in governing, the changing role of professionals and the possibilities for more resilient care systems.

This book presents the healthcare reform experiences of six small- to mid-sized, but dynamic, economies spanning the Asia-Pacific, the Middle East and Europe. Usually not given serious consideration in major international comparisons because of their small size, each in fact provides a fascinating case study that illuminates the understanding of the dynamics of healthcare reform. Although dissimilar in historical and cultural backgrounds, they share some important features: all faced very similar pressures for change in the 1970s and 1980s; all considered a very similar range of policy options; and all did not only discuss but actually implemented fundamental changes in their healthcare funding, organization, contracting and governance structures with strikingly different outcomes.All of the authors have lived and worked in one or more of the countries studied in this volume. The analytic frameworks they use reflect their broad range of professional and disciplinary backgrounds in health economics and political science. Beyond mere descriptions of reform processes and superficial analyses based on aggregate data from the usual OECD or WHO sources, they seek to understand -- and explain -- the variations in country experiences by examining the politico-socio-economic factors driving health reform as seen through the respective country lenses. In coming together in this unique international collaboration, they make an important contribution to the growing field of international comparative health policy studies.Contributors: Tsung-Mei Cheng (Princeton University, USA), David Chinitz (The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel), Luca Crivelli and Iva Bolgiani (University of Lugano, Switzerland), Meng-Kin Lim (National University of Singapore, Singapore), Kieke G H Okma and Hans Maarse (Maastricht University, The Netherlands), Toni Ashton and Tim Tenbensel (University of Auckland, New Zealand).

Offering a comprehensive introduction to the comparison of governments and political systems, this new edition helps students to understand not just the institutions and political cultures of their own countries but also those of a wide range of democracies and authoritarian regimes from around the world. This new edition offers: -A revised structure to aid navigation and understanding -New learning features, 'Using Theory' and 'Exploring Problems', designed to help students think comparatively -Empirical global examples, with increased coverage of non-Western scholarship and analyses -Coverage of important contemporary topics including: minorities; LGBTQ+ issues; identity politics; women in politics; political trust; populism; Covid-19. Featuring a wide range of engaging learning features, this book is an essential text for undergraduate and postgraduate courses on Comparative Politics, Comparative Government, Introduction to Politics and Introduction to Political Science.

Following on from 2015’s Healthcare Reform, Quality and Safety: Perspectives, Participants, Partnerships and Prospects in 30 Countries, this book encompasses a global perspective on healthcare while shifting the focus from reform to showcasing success stories of healthcare systems worldwide. It provides explanations of why various facets of healthcare systems work well in different contexts and offers the reader alternative models for consideration. The book features contributions from 60 countries, going much further than the common practice of focusing on affluent Western nations, to provide a comprehensive exploration of the success of healthcare systems globally. The majority of literature on health-sector improvement attempts to address the problems within systems, relating the errors that can and do occur, for example, and offering solutions and preventative strategies. This book of country case studies will approach the enhancement of health systems, patient safety and the quality of care in a new and innovative way, comprehensively surveying and synthesizing the success stories of healthcare systems around the world, utilizing Hollnagel’s Safety-II approach to acknowledge the importance of exploring what goes right, what works well, and why it works. These success stories may include reference to macro, meso or micro levels of healthcare systems, various sectors (e.g., aged care, acute care or primary care), or specific programs or projects. Health System Improvement Across the Globe: Success Stories from 60 Countries is unprecedented in terms of both reach and positive emphasis, and as such will be instrumental in changing ways of thinking about and guiding health-sector improvement.

This volume focuses on nine countries that have completed, or are well along in the process of carrying out, major health financing reforms. These countries have significantly expanded their people's health care coverage or maintained such coverage after prolonged political or economic shocks (e.g., following the collapse ofthe Soviet Union). In doing so, this report seeks to expand the evidence base on "good performance" in health financing reforms in low- and middle-income countries. The countries chosen for the study were Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Estonia, the Kyrgyz Republic, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Tunisia, and Vietnam.

Health care reforms around the world—from Europe and North America to Africa, Latin America and Asia—seem to all be market-oriented reforms driven by international business interests and right wing political parties. There seems to be a sudden and broad concern with the efficiency of medical care, with the assertion that democratically or professionally run systems are inherently inefficient. Far less concern is evident for the more traditional values held regarding medical care, effectiveness (or quality) and equity. The fact is that we have little good cross-national research that systematically addresses the reform issue. This book addresses that problem, and attempts to look at health care reforms in a number of countries, representing as wide a spectrum as possible, and using a common conceptual framework that allows for comparable information to be gathered and presented on each, despite differing levels of socio-economic development. The authors agreed on a set of models that were thought to provide reasonable guidance in answering the questions of the source of pressures for reform, the alternative modes of organization that have been found in the world in recent years, and the direction of change among those alternatives.