Health care systems in transition: Brazil Part I: An outline of Brazil's health care system reforms.
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The present longitudinal study of 485 youth used structural equation models to investigate the ways in which a combination of social disadvantage in the family of origin and adolescent maladjustment increases risk for physical health difficulties during adulthood. The study examined a theoretical model that proposes that disruptions in the transition to adulthood mediate the effect of earlier social disadvantage and adolescent maladjustment on young adult physical health status. Results show that early risk factors initiate a sequence of negative influences on young adult physical health through early entry into family responsibility, truncated educational attainment, and poor occupational and economic status. These associations prevailed even after controlling for physical health status during adolescence.
OBJECTIVE: Women beginning the transition to menopause now have access to complementary and alternative therapies (CAM) that were not universally available in the past. Little is known about the association between CAM use and the use of conventional health care during menopause. We investigated the longitudinal association between use of CAM therapies and utilization of conventional health care in a large, multiethnic sample of midlife women who were enrolled in the cohort phase of the Study of Women's Health Across the Nation (SWAN). DESIGN: We used generalized estimating equations, repeated measures modeling to examine the association between CAM use and the yearly number of conventional health-care contacts, adjusting for relevant covariates, during a two-year period. CAM use was evaluated longitudinally as continuous, incident (no CAM use at baseline), sporadic, or no use during the study period. RESULTS: Relative to nonusers, continuous CAM users had more conventional health-care contacts (beta 0.14, 95% CI 0.06, 0.21). Incident users and sporadic users also showed an excess in conventional health-care contacts (beta 0.14, CI 0.06, 0.22) and (beta 0.09, CI 0.01, 0.16), respectively. Ethnicity was independently associated with health-care contacts. Relative to white women, Japanese women had fewer contacts (beta -0.18, CI -0.31, -0.05). CONCLUSIONS: Despite being a generally healthy, well-educated and high-income population with good access to health care, CAM users were using more of both conventional and alternative health-care resources than women who did not use CAM. These findings have practical implications for conventional health-care practitioners, allied health professionals and CAM practitioners.
Defining business objectives is never easy. However, with market reform exceeding any realizable promise of governmental reform, the rapid evolution of health care may seem daunting. The Table presented by the author helps conceptualize where we are and where things seem to be moving. It incorporates issues of interest to the health care business manager, developer, provider, and informed consumer.
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Urban transit operators' medical symptoms and conditions exceed other occupational groups, resulting partly from working conditions. Medical outcomes among operators have an impact on the transit system, including on performance, work attendance, and medical costs. This is exacerbated by external economic and political pressures in which expected service often exceeds the system's capacity in a congested, chaotic urban environment. A vicious cycle of poor working environment, reduced health and well-being among operators, and lowered efficiency and increased costs often results. Operator-health policies focusing solely on individuals are not sufficient to address these problems. A broader approach is needed, acknowledging the relationship between health of the system and health of employees, including redesigning the interface between transit systems and the urban environment and organizational change within companies. This comprehensive approach recognizes the dynamic reciprocity among the transit operators, the transit system, and the larger community.
The growth in market-based contracting and the ascendency of managed care have generated substantial change in the health care delivery system. These reforms were spurred largely by private health care purchasers seeking a means for controlling the relentless growth in medical care costs. Following the private sector's lead, the two large public programs, Medicaid and Medicare, have also looked to managed care for solving their mounting expenditure problems. Increased reliance on competition, and the growing rejection of rate regulation, have fundamentally re-shaped the health care delivery system and raise several important policy issues. Market-based contracting places a premium on the ability of health plans to control the growth in prices and use of services, resulting in continued merger and consolidation among health plans. At the same time, providers have recognized the competitive bargaining advantages in negotiating with health plans through their own consolidation and mergers. Unanswered in the managed care revolution is the means for financing care for the 41 million uninsured Americans. Moreover, whether the private and public sector are willing, or need, to finance the training of young physicians also hangs in the balance.
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Continuous engagement in treatment and recovery services is one of the most important aspects of addressing acute episodes of severe behavioral health problems and the ongoing disabilities associated with them. Traditionally, fragmentation in systems of care has been common, and the transition from one provider, location, or intensity of service to another has not been prioritized in treatment planning. The authors describe a set of guidelines for maintaining continuity of care that was developed by the American Association of Community Psychiatrists. These guidelines embrace a progressive conceptualization of an integrated service system. For each element of the guidelines, a sample outcome indicator is presented that could be used to measure implementation. These guidelines can be used to help form transition plans, quality improvement initiatives, and program evaluations.
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The purpose of the study was to assess if a new scintigraphic method for noninvasive assessment of colonic transit could differentiate between subjects with normal bowel transit and those with constipation. Eleven normal subjects and 29 constipated patients were given 4 MBq iodine-131-cellulose (131I-cellulose) orally and sequential abdominal scans were performed at 6, 24, 48, 72, and 96 hr from which total and segmental percent retentions were calculated. There were clear differences between the normal subjects and the constipated patients for the total percent retention at all time intervals, on a segmental basis in the right colon at 24 hr, and in all segments at 48 and 72 hr. Three-day urinary excretion of radioiodine was minimal; 2.4% +/- 1.2% (mean +/- s.d.) in constipated patients and 3.1% +/- 0.8% in normals, with approximately 75% occurring in the first day. The use of oral radiotracers in the investigation of constipation appears promising.
Croatian Primary Health Care Information System pilot project, conducted between 2001 and 2003, aimed to develop and deploy a health information system based on the latest technologies which would improve the quality of primary health care and rationalise the consumption. 60 primary health care teams (physician and nurse) were equipped with PCs and connected via central server to the main national health insurer, state treasury and public health institute. Developed information system enabled rapid retrieval of documents, replacement of manual data input and a real-time insight into needed information as well as prompt interventions within the system. The project also introduced electronic smart cards for physicians and nurses, so that at each medical check-up the information system verified both the ensuree's and the physician's or nurse's status and rights.Based on the experiences from the pilot project, plan has been made for comprehensive health information system at national level which would connect primary health care teams, hospitals, laboratories, dentistries, health insurance companies, state treasury, public health institutes and electronic health records database. Its major goals are more rapid diagnostics, accuracy in prescribing therapy, standardisation of the good practice as well as better utilisation of capacities, shorter waiting times and shorter stays in hospitals, which would lead to improvement in overall health care quality and better control over the health care consumption. Estimated 5-year investment for installing such system would be 125 million EUR. However, information system could save substantially more and yield a return of investment in only two years.As information system for primary health care should be a strategic component of every health care reform and development plan, we can recommend our model, based on the results of the pilot project, to other transitional countries.
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