Organization of health care services

The article published by Quentin et al in Health Policy describes payment models for hospital specialists in 8 countries, including England, France, Germany, Netherlands, Sweden and Switzerland. Very useful overviews on payment models, the proportion of self-employed vs employed by the hospitals, role of fee for service model is provided.

The current guideline replaces the previous version of the document of 2010. The Norwegian Directorate of Health decided to update the guideline because new methods of treatment and rehabilitation of stroke became avaliable in recent years.

Patients should not pay anything other than regulated out-of-pocket payments when they visit general practitioner or other healthcare professional, who have contract with public health authorities.

An international advisor group of 14 medical and health economic experts proposed 38 measures of how control the increase of healthcare costs in Switzerland. One third of the actions including the strengthening of HTA are already considered. The Swiss Federal Council now wants to develop concrete plans for the implementation of the new measures suggested in the report by the expert group, including global budgets for the outpatient sector, the introduction of medical boards, the encouragement of parallel imports of medical technology and implants and annual review of prices.

Austrian Ministry of Social Affairs engaged London School of Economics to undertake efficiency review of country’s social insurance system. Policy recommendations presented in the report include harmonisation of benefits (dentistry, non-medical services, medical aids and medical therapeutic devices), the introduction of an agency for quality assurance and modernisation of outpatient care.

Reinhard Busse et al. published article “Statutory health insurance in Germany: a health system shaped by 135 years of solidarity, self-governance, and competition” in the Lancet. Article provides valuable insights into history and current state of statutory health insurance system in Germany.

Finnish government is working on regional reform, which will be implemented from 2019-2020. In relation to health care system, the reform will introduce 18 countries, which will take over the organization and funding for health care from more than 200 municipalities and their collaborations.

The Government has given to the Swedish National Board of Health and Welfare (Socialstyrelsen) to see how much of the highly specialized care could be coordinated at the national level. The proposed model will be tested in autumn 2017 in two areas: the nervous system diseases and women's health and childbirth. These areas will be surveyed to see which individual care measures would be improved.

The Head of NHS England has announced recently, that England will start a pilot of much deeper integrated care in 9 areas, covering about 7 million people. Integration will tighten up the links between hospital, GP and social care. Integration will be organized in the form of so-called "accountable care systems".

A group of researchers from Belgium Health Care Knowledge Center (KCE) published an article about current state and development of organization and financing of urgent care in Belgium, including emergency departments, GP offices and telephone support.