Health Equity: 03/28/11

Monday, March 28, 2011

[EQ] Leading Health Indicators for Healthy People 202

Key indicators of health in the USA

Editorial - The Lancet, Volume 377, Issue 9771 - 26 March 2011

“….The US Government's Healthy People initiative aims to improve the health of Americans. Last week, the Institute of Medicine released Leading Health Indicators for Healthy People2020, prioritising 12 health indicators and 24 health objectives among 42 topics and nearly 600 objectives.
Those health indicators are access to care services, quality of health-care services, healthy behaviours, physical environment, social environment, chronic disease, mental health, injury, maternal and infant health, tobacco use, substance abuse, and responsible sexual behaviour….”

Leading Health Indicators for Healthy People 2020:

Letter Report – March 2011

Committee on Leading Health Indicators for Healthy People 2020

Board on Population Health and Public Health Practice

Available online at: http://bit.ly/g6cxfn

“……In response to a request from the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), the Institute of Medicine (IOM) established the Committee on Leading Health Indicators for Healthy People 2020 to develop and recommend 12 indicators and 24 objectives for consideration by HHS for guiding a national health agenda and for consideration for inclusion in Healthy People 2020.

The product of the committee was to be a consensus letter report.

In conducting its work, the committee was asked to

1. Review current and past health indicators sets, including Healthy People 2010 Leading Health Indicators, the State of the USA (SUSA) indicators, and the Community Health Status Indicators;

2. Give consideration to provisions of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act that mandate the establishment of key national indicators and prevention-related measures, goals, and objectives;

3. Define basic principles or purposes for Healthy People 2020 Leading Health Indicators;

4. Develop criteria for selecting Healthy People 2020 Leading Health Indicators. Such criteria should be actionable and reflect the importance of science, evidence, and public health concerns. Development of such criteria should involve consideration of Healthy People 2010 Leading Health Indicators and reflect the Healthy People 2020 framework that includes new issues and topics (e.g., health communication and health information technology);

5. Choose indicators that, to the extent possible, have annual data sources, with comparable data available at the state and county level; and

6. Identify 24 objectives drawn from Healthy People 2020 and 12 topics under which the selected objectives will be organized…..”

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[EQ] Learning from others - in advancing the health of all

Learning from others

Amartya Sen
Thomas W Lamont University Professor and Professor of Economics and Philosophy, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA

The Lancet, Volume 377, Issue 9761, 2011

Website: http://bit.ly/giZNan

“…..Thailand has made huge use of what they call the National Health Assembly, in which there are open discussions on what problems the public faces in health care and in related fields and also on how they can be removed. This has gone with the progress made in Thailand in introducing universal public health care, and it has been nicely supplemented by feedback from the people, with considerable gain in efficiency and reach. As a functioning democracy, India can learn from others on how the public can be engaged in advancing the health of all. There is a huge role for the media and for political leadership, of all parties, in advancing this important national cause, in making the best use of the facilities provided by democracy.

As it happens, some of the real progress that has happened in recent years in India has come from public discussion—and agitation. This applies, for example, to the delivery of cooked midday meals in schools, and selected interventions in child development in preschool institutions. These new changes have had positive effects, even though their use is uneven across the country, and has to be expanded and improved.

China does not yet have either of these important instruments of basic health care, but they could be important for China too, since China—despite its high average performance—does have identifiable gaps (the existence of which has been pioneeringly studied by the China Development Research Foundation). China too may have to learn from others to eliminate the resisting pockets of deprivation. India faces, of course, a much larger task.

Learning from other countries remains as important today as it was in Yi Jing's time, almost 1400 years ago………”

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[EQ] Cross-border health care in the European Union - Mapping and analysing practices and policies

Cross-border health care in the European Union. Mapping and analysing practices and policies

Mapping and analyzing practices and policies

Edited by

Matthias Wismar, Willy Palm, Josep Figueras, Kelly Ernst, Ewout van Ginneken
European Observatory on Health Systems and Policies Study Series No. 22
World Health Organization 2011, on behalf of the European Observatory on Health Systems and Policies

Available online PDF [348p.] at: http://bit.ly/hApZOw

“…..The book presents a rich and detailed cross-European analysis of different dimensions that determine the scope and policy of cross-border care: access to health care, benefits and tariffs, quality and safety, patients’ rights, cross-border collaboration and crossborder health care data…..”

“….We hope that the book can further inform the political debate on the future of cross-border health care in the EU, a debate that will continue even after the final adoption of a proposed directive in early 2011. Uncertainties surrounding cross-border health care will remain, and new issues are likely to emerge given the constant flow of new European Court of Justice rulings on cross-border health care. We also believe that the transposition and implementation of a directive on cross-border health care in the Member States will benefit from an informed debate in the relevant countries, to which this book can make a contribution…” Editors

Content

Chapter 1 The Health Service Initiative: supporting the construction of a framework for cross-border health care

Chapter 2 Towards a renewed Community framework for safe, high-quality and efficient cross-border health care within the European Union

Chapter 3 Access to health care services within and between countries of the European Union

Chapter 4 Benefit baskets and and tariffs

Chapter 5 Quality and safety

Chapter 6 Mapping national practices and strategies relating to patients’ rights

Chapter 7 Cross-border collaboration

Chapter 8 Past impacts of cross-border health care

Chapter 9 Cross-border health care data

Chapter 10 Annexes to Chapter 5 and Chapter 6

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