This editorial introduces the new journal and sets out some of the editors' principles. It notes the apparently haphazard approach towards the improvement in management practice in health care, and contrasts it with the more scientific approach adopted by the medical profession. The journal aims...

Since the introduction of the system of diagnosis related groups (DRGs) for USA Medicare patients in 1983, case payment mechanisms have gradually become the principal means of reimbursing hospitals in most developed countries. The use of case payments nevertheless poses severe technical and...

Capitation and risk adjustment have become the chosen policy instruments to seek cost containment and equity of access for many developed health care systems. Increasingly, this entails the prospective setting of global budgets for the health care expenditures incurred by health care plans on...