Major disparities in the cost of health care have made the pricing of specialist and hospital services a contentious issue in South Africa, particularly in the private sector. To help inform policy debate, this paper profiles selected experiences on the pricing of health services, competition...

About one in ten patients are harmed during health care. This paper estimates the health, financial and economic costs of this harm. Results indicate that patient harm exerts a considerable global health burden. The financial cost on health systems is also considerable and if the flow-on...

Building on published patient safety research literature, this paper aims to broaden the existing knowledge base on safety lapses occurring in primary and ambulatory care settings. The findings of this paper show that safety lapses in primary and ambulatory care are common. About half of the...

Health workforce planning aims to achieve a proper balance between the supply and demand for different categories of health workers, in both the short and longer-term. Workforce planning in the health sector is particularly important, given the time and cost involved in training new doctors and...

This article looks at the application of performance measurement systems in the health sector across OECD countries. The data comes from the 2017 OECD Survey on Performance Measurement Systems in the Health Sector and Responsibilities across Levels of Government. The results show that the...

Measuring health care productivity is important as health is a large sector of the economy and with the majority of funding coming from public sources, the outlook for productivity growth is a critical factor in the debate about fiscal sustainability. The UK has over 20 years’ experience of...

In light of the many discussions advocating the use of pay-for-performance and performance budgeting, this paper argues that discouraging experience with both approaches should temper expectations that performance measurement can be a reform that will make health care systems more "sustainable"...

Universal health coverage has been achieved in nearly all OECD countries, providing the population with access to a defined range of goods and services. This paper provides detailed descriptions of how countries delineate the range of benefits covered, including the role of health technology...

In 2017, the “Sláintecare Report” proposed a comprehensive overhaul of the Irish health system including a reform proposal to phase out private practice in public hospitals to end the unequal treatment of public and private patients – private patients typically have quicker access to care...

We use a randomized community development programme in rural Pakistan to assess the impact of citizen engagement on public service delivery and maternal and child health outcomes. The programme had a strong focus on ensuring the participation of women. Women in the study villages had also...