US employers are facing an unprecedented opportunity to contribute toward positive, disruptive innovations in healthcare. The convergence of major trends will enable employers to exercise significant leverage in controlling healthcare costs and improving quality. US healthcare is ripe for...

In the last 20 years, expenditures on pharmaceuticals - as well as total health expenditures - have grown faster than the gross national product in all European countries. The aim of this paper was to review policies that European governments apply to reduce or at least slow down public...

The 1999 reform of the Italian healthcare system has softened the effects of the 1992 shift to market mechanisms and competition within healthcare by promoting cooperation and partnerships among providers and Local Health Units (LHUs). In addition, it has facilitated the completion of...

Diabetes mellitus has considerable and increasing importance in England. The burden of illness is concentrated in ethnic minority groups and socioeconomically deprived areas. Evidence for effective clinical care has increased following the results of the UK Prospective Diabetes Study but current...

If the disease management industry succeeds in producing effective solutions to many of the problems besetting today's healthcare delivery systems (such as misalignment of financial and care incentives, poor customer service, failure to provide useful preventative care, and a dearth of empirical...

The health of the international workforce has been an increasing area of concern for the last two decades. Globalization of the world economy and rapid technological changes continue to change the nature of work and employment practices, exposing employees to new and serious health risks. These...

Informal payments for health care are common in most former communist countries. This paper explores the demand side of these payments in Albania. Using tobit and Heckman selection models we control for individual determinants of informal payments in outpatient and inpatient health care....

The National Institute for Clinical Excellence (NICE) responds to requests by the Department of Health for guidance on the use of selected new and established technologies in the National Health Service (NHS) in England and Wales. This paper asks whether the NICE methodological guidelines help...

Exploiting cohort and spatial variation in the exposure to the "Universal Immunization Program", I estimate the program's effects on child mortality and educational attainment in India. Results show that exposure to the program reduced infant mortality by 0.4 percentage points and under-five...