Wait Time, Public and Private Hospitals

AIMS: The number of patients undergoing surgery for degenerative cervical radiculopathy has increased. In many countries, public hospitals have limited capacity. This has resulted in long waiting times for elective treatment and a need for supplementary private healthcare. It is uncertain whether the management of patients and the outcome of treatment are equivalent in public and private hospitals. The aim of this study was to compare the management and patient-reported outcomes among patients who underwent surgery for degenerative cervical radiculopathy in public and private hospitals in Norway, and to assess whether the effectiveness of the treatment was equivalent...

BACKGROUND: Chinese health insurance system faces resource distribution challenges. A patient-centric approach allows decision-makers to be keenly aware of optimized medical resource allocation. OBJECTIVE: This study aims to use the discrete choice model to determine the main factors affecting the healthcare preferences of the general Chinese population and their weights in the three scenarios (chronic non-communicable diseases, acute infectious diseases, and major diseases)...

AIMS: The objective of this audit was to analyze the radiotherapy (RT) practice in a newly established tertiary private hospital. With increasing radiation oncology (RO) facilities in private sector, this report is the first audit from a private health organization in India. SUBJECTS AND METHODS: The audit of all consecutively registered patients in RO has focused to extract data from the time of RT simulation planning till the completion of RT course. The patient and disease characteristics,RT-related treatment factors and compliance were analyzed in-depth...

Public-private partnerships (PPP) is used to advance health service access and quality. PPP implementation in hospitals is vital to shorten the service and quality gap. Hospitals are the most significant health budget spender, and this study aimed to identify the PPP effect on hospital performance indicators and its implementation challenges. Thirty-three inclusive articles were filtered and collected from Pubmed, ScienceDirect, Medline, and Sage Publication databases. Results showed that various articles succeeded in implementing PPP and improving the access and quality of health services...

BACKGROUND: Access to emergency and essential surgical care is still unmet and accessibility is disproportionately inequitable in Ethiopia and other low-and middle-income countries. The aim of this study was to assess surgical care access in terms of capability, capacity, and timeliness of care in different levels of health care in Ethiopia. METHODS: A cross-sectional study with retrospective data review was conducted in 172 health facilities from December 30, 2020 to June 10, 2021...

BACKGROUND: Since 1993, Colombia has had a mandatory social health insurance scheme that aims to provide universal health coverage to all citizens. However, some contributory regime participants purchase voluntary private health insurance (VPHI) to access better quality health services (i. e., physicians and hospitals), shorter waiting times, and a more extensive providers' network. This article aims to estimate the price elasticity of demand for the VPHI market in Colombia. METHODS: We use data from the 2016-2017 consumer expenditure national survey and apply a Heckman selection model to address the selection problem into purchasing private insurance...

Patients choice is at the core of competition in hospital care. In spite of a flourishing literature, little is known about the true process leading patients to choose a specific provider. Most models in this literature assume - without testing - that hospitals are perceived to be homogeneous providers. In this article we take a different direction. We assume that patients have a bias towards some types of hospitals, we test this hypothesis and show which attributes determine this bias. We exploit the characteristic of Italian health care organization, where devolution has allowed regional systems to choose the level of competition and the private-public hospitals mix...

OBJECTIVES: The aim of this study was to investigate factors associated with unplanned 30-day readmissions following a total knee arthroplasty (TKA), including association with post-hospital syndrome, patient enablement and transition from hospital to home. DESIGN, SETTING AND PARTICIPANTS: A cross-sectional written survey of public and private patients attending a 6-week follow-up appointment after TKA at one of four clinical services in the Australian Capital Territory (ACT) between 1 February 2018 and 31 January 2019...

BACKGROUND: To be able to assess the impact of the bundled payment system on real-life management of patients with chronic kidney disease, an overview of patient-care management before its implementation is needed. PATIENTS AND METHODS: We describe patterns of nephrology care over 3 years in 2835 patients with moderate to severe chronic kidney disease, who were followed-up from 2013 to 2019 in the CKD-REIN cohort study. Compliance with health authority guidelines during this period is also studied...

INTRODUCTION: In this age of social media, with an ever-higher profile for surgery and rankings for the general public, patients' criteria for choosing a surgeon or team are not precisely known, especially in France. We therefore conducted a prospective study concerning anterior cruciate ligament reconstruction: (1) to determine how patients came to know their surgeon; (2) to identify factors affecting final choice. HYPOTHESIS: Patients' choice of surgeon is affected by scores found in social media and rankings found in the press...

Objectives The first goal of the study is to provide a descriptive overview of the utilization of left ventricular assist device (LVAD) for the treatment of congestive heart failure (CHF) and determine the rates of LVAD use stratified by patients' demographic and hospitals' characteristics in the United States. Next, is to measure the hospitalization outcomes of length of stay (LOS) and cost in inpatients managed with LVAD. Methods We conducted a cross-sectional study using the nationwide inpatient sample and included 184,115 patients (age ≥65 years) with a primary discharge diagnosis of hypertensive and non-hypertensive CHF and was further classified by inpatients who were managed with LVAD...

This analysis of the German health system reviews recent developments in organization and governance, health financing, health care provision, health reforms and health system performance. Germany's health care system is often regarded as one of the best health care systems in the world, offering its population universal health insurance coverage and a comprehensive benefits basket with comparably low cost-sharing requirements. It provides good access to care with free choice of provider and short waiting times, which is partly due to good infrastructure with a dense network of ambulatory care physicians and hospitals, and a quantitatively high level of service provision...

BACKGROUND: Dual practice was implemented in selected Ministry of Health Malaysia hospitals to reduce brain drain and provide an alternative for patients willing to pay higher user fees to seek prompt treatment from the specialist of their choice. This study aimed to assess the implications of dual practice on waiting time and rescheduling for cataract surgery. METHODS: A retrospective study was conducted in a referral hospital. Inpatient medical records of patients who underwent cataract procedures were used to study the waiting times to surgery and rescheduling between private and public groups...

OBJECTIVES: Extensive literature exists documenting disparities in access to healthcare for patients with lower socioeconomic status (SES). The objective of this study was to examine access disparities and differences in surgical wait times in children with the most common pediatric otolaryngologic surgery, tympanostomy tubes (TT). METHODS: A retrospective cohort study was performed at a tertiary children's hospital. Children ages <18 years who received a first set of tympanostomy tubes during 2015 were studied...

Background: The escalating socioeconomic burden of knee osteoarthritis (OA) underscores the need for innovative strategies to reduce wait times for total knee arthroplasty (TKA). The purpose of this study was to evaluate resource use, costs and health-related quality of life (HRQoL) across the continuum of care for patients with knee OA. Methods: This was a prospective study of 383 patients recruited from a high-volume teaching hospital at different stages of care (referral, consultation and presurgery)...

BACKGROUND: The dropout rate is an important indicator of the quality of emergency services. The authors intent to evaluate factors that influence abandonments in the Pediatric Emergency Department (PED) and to assess outcome and destination of the highest triage leveled patients. METHODS: Retrospective analysis of the abandonment cases occurring between 2014 and 2016 in a tertiary hospital, including sociodemographic characterization, temporal factors, triage level, referral from other health services, waiting time and patient attendance...

BACKGROUND: The Israeli National Health Insurance Law provides permanent residents with a basket of healthcare services through non-profit public health insurance plans, independently of the individual's ability to pay. Since 2015, several reforms and programs have been initiated that were aimed at reinforcing public healthcare and redressing negative aspects of the health system, and specifically the constant rise in private health expenditure. These include the "From Reimbursement-to-Networks Arrangement", the "Cooling-off Period" program and the program to shorten waiting times...

In 2019, a British Columbia (BC) court decided against a Charter challenge, launched by Cambie Surgical Services (a private clinic). Cambie claimed that various laws in BC suppressing a 2-tier system are contrary to the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and should be overturned. The trial judge carefully weighed the evidence for and against a 2-tier system as a "safety valve" for long wait times in public Medicare, finding overall that 2-tier will do more harm than good in the BC context. It is a small victory and a reprieve for public Medicare, which is increasingly under attack from various forms of privatization...

Younger people are more likely to experience incident mental health conditions and hold lower levels of private health insurance coverage. Government reforms introduced in 2018 enabled customers to avoid 2-month waiting periods to access mental health hospital care. Effectiveness in reducing time to admission is assessed.

INTRODUCTION: With the increasing demand for medical imaging, non-attendance inhibits private and public radiology practices in Singapore from providing timely care and achieving maximal efficiency. Missed radiological appointments adversely affect clinical and economic outcomes and strain the finite healthcare resources. We examined the prevalence and predictors of patient non-attendance for radiological services at a regional public hospital in Singapore and compared them against other medical imaging centres globally...