The Changing Role Of The Hospital In European Health Systems

A team of world-leading policy experts and clinicians analyse the changing role of the hospital across Europe.

“This timely book provides insight into the changing role of the ‘hospital’ in the face of technological, organizational innovation and ever-tightening health budgets.”James Barlow, Imperial College Business School, UK “This book covers various relevant aspects of the hospital in different states and contexts. Underlining the importance of business models for future hospitals, this publication presents models of care from a historic and a current perspective. All authors possess a deep insight into different health care systems, not only as scholars but as experts working for world-renowned health policy institutions such as the World Health Organization, the World Bank or the European Observatory for Health Systems.”Siegfried Walch, Management Center Innsbruck, Austria “For an organisation like mine, representing those involved in the strategic planning of healthcare infrastructure, this book provides invaluable insights into what really matters – now and for the future – in the complex and contentious field of hospital development.”Jonathan Erskine, European Health Property Network, Netherlands This book seeks to reframe current policy discussions on hospitals. Healthcare services turn expensive economic resources—people, capital, pharmaceuticals, energy, materials—into care and cure. Hospitals concentrate the use and the cost of these resources, particularly highly-trained people, expensive capital, and embedded technologies. But other areas of health, such as public health and primary care, seem to attract more attention and affection, at least within the health policy community. How to make sense of this paradox? Hospitals choose, or are assigned, to deliver certain parts of care packages. They are organised to do this via “business models”. These necessarily incorporate models of care – the processes of dealing with patients. The activity needs to be governed, in the widest senses. Rational decisions need to be taken about both the care and the resources to be used. This book pulls these elements together, to stimulate a debate.

* What roles do hospitals play in the health care system and how are these roles changing? * If hospitals are to optimize health gains and respond to public expectations, how should they be configured, managed, and sustained? * What lessons emerge from experiences of changing hospital systems across Europe? Hospitals of the future will confront difficult challenges: new patterns of disease, rapidly evolving medical technologies, ageing populations, and continuing budget constraints. This book explores the competing pressures facing policymakers across Europe as they struggle to respond to these complex challenges. It argues that hospitals, as part of a larger health system, should focus on enhancing health outcomes while also responding to public expectations. Adopting a cross-national, cross-disciplinary perspective, the study assesses recent evidence on the factors driving hospital reform and the strategies used to improve organizational performance. It reviews the evidence from eastern as well as western Europe and combines academic research with real-world policy experience. It looks at the role of hospitals in enhancing health rather than simply processing patients. The book concludes that hospitals cannot be managed in isolation from society and the wider health system, and that policymakers have a responsibility to define the broader health care goals that hospitals should strive to meet. Hospitals in a Changing Europe synthesizes current evidence in a readable and accessible form for all practitioners, policy-makers, academics and graduate level students concerned with health reform.

The nations of the EU have long led the world in universal health coverage. Recent economic developments have created problems ranging from inequities of care to growing numbers of uninsured — a progression analyzed by Win de Gooijer in Trends in EU Health Care Systems. His ideas may be startling, and the book is bound to be controversial. This is critical reading for health care managers and policymakers, politicians and insurors - anyone looking to Europe to understand this far-reaching evolution.

People have always travelled within Europe for work and leisure, although never before with the current intensity. Now, however, they are travelling for many other reasons, including the quest for key services such as health care. Whatever the reason for travelling, one question they ask is "If I fall ill, will the health care I receive be of a high standard?" This book examines, for the first time, the systems that have been put in place in all of the European Union's 27 Member States. The picture it paints is mixed. Some have well developed systems, setting standards based on the best available evidence, monitoring the care provided, and taking action where it falls short. Others need to overcome significant obstacles.

This volume, developed by the Observatory together with OECD, provides an overall conceptual framework for understanding and applying strategies aimed at improving quality of care. Crucially, it summarizes available evidence on different quality strategies and provides recommendations for their implementation. This book is intended to help policy-makers to understand concepts of quality and to support them to evaluate single strategies and combinations of strategies.

This volume contains an Open Access Chapter - This book provides a comprehensive understanding of the sustainability of health systems in Europe. Furthermore, it includes an introduction on how EU action in supporting health- care policies in the EU Member States, both looking at implemented actions and describing current priorities for the future.

"This study provides an overview of recent changes in national government's role in the governance of health systems in 12 countries. Country assessments focus on recent efforts to reconfigure responsibilities for health policy regulation and management; the resultant policy priorities; and the initial impact" --Executive summary.