Think and Act Globally: Health Affairs’ September Issue

TweetThe September issue of Health Affairs emphasizes lessons learned from developing and industrialized nations collectively seeking the elusive goals of better care, with lower costs and higher quality. A number of studies analyze key global trends including patient engagement and integrated care, while others examine U.S.-based policy changes and their applicability overseas. This issue was supported by the Qatar Foundation and World Innovation Summit for Health (WISH), Hamad Medical Corporation, Imperial College London, and The Commonwealth Fund. The U.S. leads the global pack in hospital bureaucracy, no matter what type of health care system. David U. Himmelstein of the City University of New York and coauthors analyzed hospital cost accounting data across eight diverse nations and found that 25.3 percent of all hospital expenditures in the U.S. are attributable to administrative costs, while the lowest of these costs occurred in Scotland and Canada (about 12 percent). They also found that U.S. administrative costs are on the rise, without any direct correlation between those increases and better care. The authors attribute these trends to the complex, varying billing and rate requirements for multiple insurers in the U.S., as well as the need for hospitals to channel profits or surpluses toward modernization efforts necessary to compete. They point out that the administrative costs were highest at for-profit hospitals, and suggest single-payer reform as a mechanism to ...
Source: Health Affairs Blog - Category: Health Management Authors: Tags: All Categories Emergency Medicine Global Health Health Reform Hospitals Source Type: blogs