scholarly journals Good Intentions, Questionable Results

2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Kayla Gordon

Mandatory reporting legislation is designed to clarify when to report and ensure that all cases of child maltreatment are reported. However, while mandated reporting is well meaning and in the public interest, many practical difficulties for health care professionals and families reduce its effectiveness. Therefore, Ontario mandatory reporting legislation is falling short of its purpose of eliminating underreporting to protect children. This paper outlines this problem and offers some potential solutions.

2017 ◽  
Vol 12 (4) ◽  
pp. 471-493 ◽  
Author(s):  
Amanda Warren-Jones

AbstractRegulatory theory is premised on the failure of markets, prompting a focus on regulators and industry from economic perspectives. This article argues that overlooking the public interest in the sustainability of commercial markets risks markets failing completely. This point is exemplified through health care markets – meeting an essential need – and focuses upon innovative medicines as the most desired products in that market. If this seemingly invulnerable market risks failure, there is a pressing need to consider the public interest in sustainable markets within regulatory literature and practice. Innovative medicines are credence goods, meaning that the sustainability of the market fundamentally relies upon the public trusting regulators to vouch for product quality. Yet, quality is being eroded by patent bodies focused on economic benefits from market growth, rather than ensuring innovatory value. Remunerative bodies are not funding medicines relative to market value, and market authorisation bodies are not vouching for robust safety standards or confining market entry to products for ‘unmet medical need’. Arguably, this failure to assure quality heightens the risk of the market failing where it cannot be substituted by the reputation or credibility of providers of goods and/or information such as health care professionals/institutions, patient groups or industry.


2011 ◽  
Vol 6 (4) ◽  
pp. 203-206 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert Wheeler ◽  
Paul Spargo ◽  
Anneke Lucassen

The past few decades have seen patient autonomy ascend to a prime position in health care. Patient consent is seen as a key component to expression of autonomy. Yet, interventions may also be justified without consent because they are deemed to be in the public interest. We observe some subtle shifts in balance in these justifications in health care and illustrate these with a range of examples. We hope thereby to stimulate a more explicit debate so that health-care professionals can manage these competing interests.


BMJ Leader ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. leader-2021-000509
Author(s):  
Marcel Levi

BackgroundThe NHS is a fascinating health care system and is enjoying a lot of support from all layers of British society. However, it is clear that the system has excellent features but also areas that can be improved.Story of selfA number of years as a chief executive in one of London’s largest hospital has brought me a wealth of impressions, experiences, and understanding about working in the NHS. Contrasting those to my previous experience as chief executive in Amsterdam (The Netherlands) provides an interesting insight.ObservationsVery strong features of the NHS are the high level of health care professionals, the focus on quality and safety, and involvement of patients and the public. However, the NHS can significantly improve by addressing the lack of clinical professionals in the lead, curtailing ever increasing bureaucracy, and reducing its peculiar preference for outsourcing even the most crucial activities to private parties. The frequent inability to swiftly and successfully complete goal-directed negotiations as well as the large but from a clinical point of view irrelevant private sector are areas of sustained bewilderment. Lastly, the drive for innovation and transformation as well as the level of biomedical research in the NHS and supported by the British universities is fascinating and outstanding.


Author(s):  
Karsten Vrangbæk

Scandinavian health systems have traditionally been portrayed as relatively similar examples of decentralised, public integrated health systems. However, recent decades have seen significant public policy developments in the region that should lead us to modify our understanding. Several dimensions are important for understanding such developments. First, several of the countries have undergone structural reforms creating larger governance units and strengthening the state level capacity to regulate professionals and steer developments at the regional and municipal levels. Secondly, the three Nordic countries studied experienced an increase in the purchase of voluntary health insurance and the use of private providers. This introduces several issues for the equality of users and the efficiency of the system. This paper will investigate such trends and address the question: Is the Nordic health system model changing, and what are the consequences for trust, professional regulation and the public interest?


2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anat Gesser-Edelsburg ◽  
Nour Abed Elhadi Shahbari ◽  
Ricky Cohen ◽  
Adva Mir Halavi ◽  
Rana Hijazi ◽  
...  

BACKGROUND In the new media age, the public searches for information both online and offline. Many studies have examined how the public reads and understands this information but very few investigate how people assess the quality of journalistic articles as opposed to information generated by health professionals. OBJECTIVE The aim of this study was to examine how public health care workers (HCWs) and the general public seek, read, and understand health information and to investigate the criteria by which they assess the quality of journalistic articles. METHODS A Web-based nonprobability sampling questionnaire survey was distributed to Israeli HCWs and members of the public via 3 social media outlets: Facebook, WhatsApp, and Instagram. A total of 979 respondents participated in the online survey via the Qualtrics XM platform. RESULTS The findings indicate that HCWs find academic articles more reliable than do members of the general public (44.4% and 28.4%, respectively, P<.001). Within each group, we found disparities between the places where people search for information and the sources they consider reliable. HCWs consider academic articles to be the most reliable, yet these are not their main information sources. In addition, HCWs often use social networks to search for information (18.2%, P<.001), despite considering them very unreliable (only 2.2% found them reliable, P<.001). The same paradoxes were found among the general public, where 37.5% (P<.001) seek information via social networks yet only 8.4% (P<.001) find them reliable. Out of 6 quality criteria, 4 were important both to HCWs and to the general public. CONCLUSIONS In the new media age where information is accessible to all, the quality of articles about health is of critical importance. It is important that the criteria examined in this research become the norm in health writing for all stakeholders who write about health, whether they are professional journalists or citizen journalists writing in the new media.


1989 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 103-109 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. Cohen

This article examines the meaning of appropriate technology in the World Health Organization's comprehensive definition of primary care. The author concludes that broad-ranging aspects of health maintenance, such as public health, personal lifestyles, and scientific research, as well as traditional diagnostic and therapeutic practices, need to be subjected to clear and careful scrutiny. It is vital that the results of these technology assessment studies be disseminated as widely as possible to both health care professionals and the public.


2020 ◽  
Vol 7 (6) ◽  
pp. 1610-1620
Author(s):  
Umair Majid

Patient engagement (PE) has become embedded in discussions about health service planning and quality improvement, and the goal has been to find ways to observe the potential beneficial outcomes associated with PE. Patients and health care professionals use various terms to depict PE, for example, partnership and collaboration. Similarly, tokenism is consistently used to describe PE that has gone wrong. There is a lack of clarity, however, on the meanings and implications of tokenism on PE activities. The objective of this concept analysis was to examine the peer-reviewed and gray literature that has discussed tokenism to identify how we currently understand and use the concept. This review discusses 4 dimensions of tokenism: unequal power, limited impact, ulterior motives, and opposite of meaningful PE. These dimensions explicate the different components, meanings, and implications of tokenism in PE practice. The findings of this review emphasize how tokenism is primarily perceived as negative by supporters of PE, but this attribution depends on patients’ preferences for engagement. In addition, this review compares the dimensions of tokenism with the levels of engagement in the International Association of the Public Participation spectrum. This review suggests that there are 2 gradations of tokenism; while tokenism represents unequal power relationships in favor of health care professionals, this may lead to either limited or no meaningful change or change that is primarily aligned with the personal and professional goals of clinicians, managers, and decision-makers.


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