Two fundamental goals of health systems are to maximise overall population health gain (referred to as efficiency) and to minimise unfair health inequalities (equity). Often there is a trade-off in maximising efficiency vis a vis equity and the relative weight given to one goal over the other is...

Predictive Risk Models which utilize routinely collected data to develop algorithms are used in England to stratify patients according to their hospital admission risk. An individual's risk score can be used as a basis to select patients for hospital avoidance programmes. This paper presents a...

ln 1993, the New Zealand health system was radically restructured. Area health boards, which were responsible for both purchasing and providing health services, were replaced by a quasi-market system in which public and private providers compete for public funds via contracts with purchasers....