Australian health review : a publication of the Australian Hospital Association
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Waiting time for public hospital care is a regular matter for political debate One political response has been to suggest that expanding private sector activity will reduce public waiting times. This paper tests the hypothesis that increased private activity in the health system is associated with reduced waiting times using secondary analysis of hospital activity data for 2001-02. Median waiting time is shown to be inversely related to the proportion of public patients. Policymakers should therefore be cautious about assuming that additional support for the private sector will take pressure off the public sector and reduce waiting times for public patients.
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Clinical Trial Controlled Clinical Trial
A transitional care service for elderly chronic disease patients at risk of readmission.
Multiple hospital admissions, especially those related to chronic disease, represent a particular challenge to the acute health care sector in Australia. ⋯ The outcomes of this study reflect the tension that exists between implementing multifaceted integrated health service programs and attempting to evaluate them within complex and changing environments using robust research methodologies.
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To model the effectiveness of after-hours general practice (GP) in reducing metropolitan Perth emergency departments' (ED) low acuity patient (LAP) attendances and costs. ⋯ Low acuity patients form a relatively constant, inexpensive proportion of ED workloads. After-hours GP LAP services are unlikely to significantly reduce ED attendances or costs.
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India has built a large pharmaceutical industry through an array of measures in support of domestic firms. The absence of product patents enabled Indian companies to become world leading producers of generic versions of patented drugs. ⋯ Key elements of the present shake-up include the return of 'big pharma' companies on a large scale and the emergence of several Indian firms that aim to become fully-fledged research-based multinationals. This article provides a description of the development and structure of the Indian pharmaceutical industry and explores questions and challenges arising from its integration into global markets.
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There is tension between the need of the pharmaceutical innovator for intellectual property protection and the need of society for equitable and affordable access to innovative drugs. The recent Australia-United States Free Trade Agreement provides a nice illustration of this interplay between patents, pills and politics. This article provides a brief history of patent law as applied to pharmaceuticals, describes how the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme got caught up in AUSFTA negotiations, analyses the clauses that are likely to impact upon the PBS and describes the political process that reviewed and ultimately amended the AUSFTA.