The international migration of health professionals has been a growingfeature of the global health agenda since the late 1990s. In Europe, theaccession of more countries to the European Union (EU) since 2004 hasincreased the scope for mobility among health workers and raisedadditional issues within the E...
Skill-mix initiatives focus on changing professional roles - directly and indirectly.They change roles directly through extension of roles or skills, delegation, andthe introduction of a new type of worker; they change them indirectly throughmodifications of the interface between services - that is, wher...
In some countries, pressure is growing to demonstrate that practising physicians
continue to meet acceptable standards, driven in part by concerns that the
knowledge obtained during basic training may rapidly become out of date. This
takes various forms, from expectations – in some cases backed by vari...
The optimal balance between institutional, home-based and community care
for older adults requires an effective mix of organizational, funding and delivery
mechanisms for target populations. This spans health and social care, and the
coordination of care must respect older people’s care preferences and...
PATH is a nation-wide programme providing two types of grants. The first is a health grant, which is
contingent on certain members of the household attending public health clinics at regularly
scheduled intervals. The second is the education grant, which is contingent on children aged 6-17
attending scho...
The delivery of health care is changing. While the acute hospital will always play
a key role in the provision of health care, reflecting its important role in training
and research, as well as its capacity to manage complex and severe disorders, in
many countries there is an increasing interest in the s...
The concept of screening in health care – that is, actively seeking to identify
a disease or pre-disease condition in individuals who are presumed and
presume themselves to be healthy – grew rapidly during the twentieth
century and is now widely accepted in most of the developed world. Used
wisely, i...
Within the last decades, social exclusion, disparities, and absolute poverty – almost 3 billion people living on less than US $2.00 per day – have grown despite globalization and rising per-capita income in many developing nations. Income ratios of the richest 20% of the population to the poorest 20%...
An influenza pandemic seems inevitable. The H5N1 influenza virus, known as the avian influenza, is currently circulating in Asia and has appeared in other regions. Avian influenza (flu), which has been transmitted from birds to humans on a limited basis, can be rapidly fatal, with a reported death rate o...
Nurse staffing makes a critical difference to patients. Research reveals a close link between inappropriate nurse staffing levels and higher rates of unwanted outcomes for patients. This report highlights evidence-informed recommendations for improvements in patient outcomes through advancements in nurse...
