This primer aims to provide IMF macroeconomists with the essential information they need in situations where they must address issues concerning health sector policy and when they have significant macroeconomic implications. Such issues can also affect equity and growth and are fundamental to...

Despite the increasing interest in universal health care, little is known about the optimal way to finance, design, and implement it. This paper attempts to fill this gap by providing some general policy recommendations on this important issue. While most of the paper addresses the Eastern...

This Selected Issues paper on the Slovak Republic reviews efficiency and reform of the health sector. The immediate challenge for the health care system in the Slovak Republic is to improve health sector outcomes while containing public health spending. The Slovak health care system is...

Increasing turbulence of the public hospitals environment force managers to look for a new ways of development. The literature in the field of the private organization management indicates resource-based view (RBV) as a remedy for the environmental turbulence. Organizations which operate in a...

In this paper we estimate cost efficiency and technological characteristics of public hospitals in Piedmont over the period from 2000 to 2004. During the Nineties, different regulatory reforms aiming at controlling health expenditure affected the Italian National Health Service, ranging from the...

We investigate differences in patients’ length of stay between National Health Service (NHS) public hospitals, public treatment centres and private treatment centres that provide elective (non-emergency) hip replacement to publicly-funded patients. We find that private treatment centres and...

This study applied DEA method to compare operational efficiency of South Korean and Vietnamese general public hospitals. Thirty general public hospitals from Vietnam and thirty one from South Korea were included. The operation of the targeted Vietnam public hospitals varied greatly in their...

This study examines the value of physical environment in the delivering of quality healthcare or service in public hospitals in Ghana. Twelve set of self-administered questions were designed using Baker’s (1987) typology of servicescape. A descriptive univariate analysis was applied for the...

From Few to Many is the first comprehensive look at Colombia's 1993 health system reforms. It describes the implementation of universal health insurance, including a subsidized system for the poor, and examines the impact of this and other reforms during a time when Colombia experienced crushing...

Using administrative records of births from the Perinatal Surveillance System of the Social Security System (ESSALUD) in Peru, we test whether high admissions of pregnant women affected unplanned cesarean section rates in the ESSALUD public hospitals during the period 2005-2006. To this purpose,...