In recent years, decentralization of financial and political power has been perceived as a useful means to improve outcomes of the health care sector. Such reforms are often a result of fashion, rather than being based on knowledge of “what works”. If decentralization is the favored strategy...

Within the debate about the rise of costs in the German health system, the argument has put forth that patients' excessive demand for benefits is caused by the existence of a moral hazard problem. One way of influencing an insured person's consumer behaviour is the introduction of several...

This paper investigated the delivery of health services based on data recorded at two medium-sized hospitals: Erenkoy Mental Health Research and Training Hospital located in Istanbul/Turkey and LVR-Klinik Viersen in Germany. A comparison of quality management systems in terms of certification...

Ample empirical evidence links adverse conditions during early childhood (the period from conception to age five) to worse health outcomes and lower academic achievement in adulthood. Can early-life medical care and public health interventions ameliorate these effects? Recent research suggests...

We study the role of health care within a continuous time economy of overlapping generations subject to endogenous mortality. The economy consists of two sectors: final goods production and a health care sector, selling medical services to individuals. Individuals demand health care with a view...

The role of Medical Tourism in the process of a complex satisfaction of the prosumers and the impact played in the organizational and functional changes in the Polish healthcare system. The analysis of the literature on the subject as well as an analysis of the documentation were the inspiration...

Background: Across the member countries of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), pay-for-performance (P4P) programs have been implemented in the inpatient sector to improve the quality of care provided by hospitals. However, little is known about whether such...

Access to healthcare is formed according to the characteristics of the supply and demand. While siting hospitals, ?equity' in access to healthcare should be taken as a basis for all segments of society, and necessary measures should be taken to ensure that vulnerable groups benefit from health...

Medical technological progress has been shown to be the main driver of health care costs. A key policy question is whether new treatment options are worth the additional costs. In this paper we assess the causal effect of percutaneous transluminal coronary angioplasty (PTCA), a major new heart...

Physicians are supposed to serve patients' interests, but some are more inclined to do so than others. This paper studies how the system of health care provision affects the allocation of patients to physicians when physicians differ in altruism. We show that allowing for private provision of...