Editorial
Public Management Versus Private Management
The last few years have been marked by a heated discussion concerning the virtues of private initiative in the delivery of public services. This debate goes beyond reforms in the public sector. We are now dealing with a more radical idea of handing over certain public duties to the private sector, which will be able to carry them out with fewer costs and more benefits, due to its capacity to take initiativ...
News
EU Affairs
Meeting the Challenge of Patient Mobility within the European Union Rory Watson Health Ministers from almost all 15-member states met for the first time in February to discuss patient m o b i l i t y within the European Union. The existence of this newly created high-level group in Brussels is powerful confirmation that public health policy cannot consider itself immune to developments in the European...
National News
Austria Report Reveals Poor Diet Among the Young Vienna - The rising incidence of conditions such as obesity and bulimia have served to highlight the poor eating habits of young people in the Austrian capital. The problem is most pronounced among students aged between 14 and 24 years. Some 6% of girls in this group are classified as “very underweight,” while 13% of their male counterparts fal...
EAHM News
Hospital Managers at One with Minister on Specialist Care The German Hospital Society (DKG) have given its full backing to plans by the country’s health minister, social democrat Ulla Schmidt, to open up German hospitals by allowing specialists to provide outpatient care. Hospital managers have welcomed the steps to strengthen specialist structures in German hospitals. In a position paper publish...
EU News
David Byrne Since the mid 1990s, the European Commission has been working towards delivering concrete improvements in the field of health under the slogan, “Europe of the citizens.” While the realisation of a true single market in health is still a long way off in the community of fifteen, a recent meeting of European Union health ministers on the question of patient mobility, the first meeting of...
Industry News
Schering AG posts positive results for last year Berlin - Dr. Hubertus Erlen, CEO and chairman of the executive board of Schering AG has welcomed the pharmaceutical group’s positive results for last year. In a statement, Erlen said he was “especially pleased with the significant sales growth of greater than 22 per cent in dollars in the U.S.” Schering reported a net rise of 4% in group sales in 2002,...
Cover Story
Outsourcing Hospital Services : A Choice Reached After Lengthy Deliberation
Author Paul Tronchon, Consultant, Centre National d'Expertise Hospitalière and Younès Bénanteur, Hospital manager, Assistance Publique-Hôpitaux de Paris The decision to outsource services is one of the most sensitive issues with respect to hospital management. This decision reaches the very heart of a medical establishment and affects long-established principles in terms of human and financial res...
Outsourcing : Hospitals Apply the Brakes on Costs
Author Heinz Kölking, Managing Director of the Diakonissen-Mutterhaus Rotenburg, President of the German Association of Hospital Directors Incessant pressure to reduce costs in the German health system, combined with a recent pay freeze announced by the country’s Minister for Health, Renate Schmidt, have forced hospitals to introduce measures to curb costs. The pace of structural change in the hea...
Outsourcing : A Company Perspective
Author Dr. Manfred Gehrtz, Managing Director, Endoscope Division, and Claudine Ahrens, Manager, Knowledge Management Europe/Hospital Management Services, Olympus Optical Co. (Europa) GmbH Three pilot projects by Olympus offer insight to the challenges, issues and benefits of outsourcing endoscopy departments. The agreements vary from management of supplies to completely managed endoscopy departments...
Management
Office for Health Management: Ireland
Author Denis Doherty The Office for Health Management was established in June 1997 by the Minister for Health and is funded by the Department of Health and Children. It emerged following the publication, in 1996, of a Management Development Strategy for the Health and Personal Social Services, which recommended that an office be set up to facilitate implementation of this strategy. The role...
Features
An Overview of CAWT in Ireland
Author Paul Robinson - CAWT Director General - Chief Executive Officer NEHB CAWT is the acronym for Cooperation and Working Together, a cross-border health care initiative initiated in 1992 with the signing of the “Ballyconnell Agreement” between the NorthEastern and North Western Health Boards in the South of Ireland and the Southern and Western Health and Social Services Boards in Northern Irelan...
Country Focus: Scandanavia
Collaboration Between Hospitals and Primary Health Care in Norway
Author Bjørn Guldvog, MD PhD, Director General, Berit Eivi Nilsen, MSc, Deputy Director General, Christine Furuholmen, MSc, Senior Advisor; Division of Health Care and Social Services - Norwegian Directorate for Health and Social Affairs Because of long distances and a dispersed population, Norway needs a flexible health care organisation taking local conditions into account. Reforms were implemente...
Crises of Success : Elder Care in Sweden
Author JoAnne Girard An Interview with Lennarth Johansson, Associate Professor, Research Leader, National Board of Health and Welfare, Stockholm, Sweden Sweden has been successful in creating social conditions that have achieved one of the longest lifespans in the world. Their welfare system provides health care and social services according to needs. Now they must manage the increasing demand fo...
Trends
Hospital Accreditation in France
Author Hervé Leteurtre, Quality Advisor for the Fédération Hospitalière de France The ruling of April 24, 1996, completed by the decree of April 7, 1997, forms the framework for legal proceedings for the accreditation of French hospitals. Following several other countries, hospitals and clinics in France were able to independently organise their own evaluation system. However, under the ter...