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More Health Care Is Not Necessarily Better Health Care
The Medicare system pays some California hospitals four times more than others to care for patients with similar chronic illnesses, with no gain in quality or patient satisfaction, according to a study by the Center for the Evaluative Clinical Sciences at Dartmouth Medical School. The study reveals that average spending per patient varied by a factor of four among hospitals in the state. The additional care provided in some regions and hospitals did not improve medical outcomes or patient satisfaction; in fact, as the volume of care increased, the quality of care and patient satisfaction declined. The study also found that improved hospital efficiency could have saved Medicare $1.7 billion over five years in Los Angeles alone. Read more about the study here
Can Canada learn anything from European health care systems?
November 11 Johan Hjertqvist lectures in Vancouver, Canada, at the Saving Medicare conference.
Together with other international reform expert Mr Johan Hjertqvist, President of the Health Consumer Powerhouse in Brussels is invited to feed ideas and experience into the intense debate on how to improve the Canadian health care system. A well known policy former in Canada Johan will focus on European health care experience from the consumer point of view.
You can read about the conference and his lecture here
Patients voice - The policy leaders window to better health care
The current issue of Health Affairs reports on a survey on sicker adults in Australia, Canada, Germany, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the United States.
Sizable shares of patients in all six countries report safety risks, poor care coordination, and deficiencies in care for chronic conditions. Majorities in all countries report that mistakes occurred outside the hospital.
The United States often stands out for inefficient care and errors and is an outlier on access/cost barriers. Yet no country consistently leads or lags across survey domains. Deficiencies in transition care during hospital discharge and coordination failures among patients seeing multiple physicians underscore shared challenges of improving performance across sites of care.
Invitation to "The Great Paradigm Shift" in Brussels
The Stockholm Network's Amigo Society and Health Consumer Powerhouse invite you to discuss
The Great Paradigm Shift:
Health Care as a Driver of Growth
Featuring
Dr. Arne Björnberg
Former Head
Swedish National Pharmacy Corporation
Opponent:
Sonja Teughels
Advisor Knowledge Center
Voka - Flanders Chamber of Commerce and Industry
"What is driving health care demand? What to do with an ageing society? How can we ensure a "fair" distribution of dwindling health budgets? How do we administer shortages?" These issues erroneously dominate the current debate and present health care as a "cost" to society and a problem for decision-makers. Rather than focussing on budget cuts or rationing, this event will demonstrate why the cost control paradigm is a fallacy and reveal why health care has the potential of becoming the largest service industry in our societies.
Tuesday 22 November, 2005
6:30 for 7:00pm - 8.30pm
Hotel Amigo, rue de l'Amigo, 1-3, Brussels, Belgium
RSVP: Terry O'Dwyer
T: +44 20 7354 9006,
F: +44 20 7349 8888
Acceptances Only Please
This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
Sustainable Financing of Healthcare in Europe
That one-day invitation-only conference was held in Luxemburg on October 27, 2005. As on many other healthcare conferences, a lot was said about controlling standards, containing costs, medical & technical innovation and patient empowerment, particularly by using the Internet.
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