Health policy has been a matter of public discussion in Australia since the late 1960s. Mirroring the United States experience, much of the debate initially centred around the introduction of a universal national health insurance scheme but since the mid 1970s economic conditions have changed...

Participation in the Australian Council on Hospital Standards' accreditation program provides one of the important stimuli for change in Australian hospitals. This article analyses the impact of the accreditation program upon a random sample of 23 Australian hospitals which were monitored for...