Cross-National Comparisons Of Health Care Systems
HPRP investigators have been actively involved in efforts to exchange information about best practices in health care systems and to compare systems of care cross-nationally. Alan B. Cohen attended the 2005 biennial meeting of the International Health Economics Association in Barcelona, Spain and subsequently met in London with colleagues from University College of London and Imperial College to discuss health care reform issues in the U.S. and the United Kingdom. He also attended the 2007 biennial meeting in Copenhagen, Denmark and traveled to Berlin to discuss health care reform issues with German colleagues. In the past, he was an active participant in meetings of the Four-Country Conference (1997 – 2004), and attended the World Summit of the Global Medical Forum in Zurich, Switzerland in 2004.
Joseph D. Restuccia has, for several years, advised the Health Ministry in Lombardy, Italy regarding methods for improving the quality of care in the province’s hospitals, and has taught operations management in health care in the Bocconi University’s School of Management in Milan, Italy. He also has worked with a network of hospitals in Portugal regarding methods for improving the quality of care in those institutions.
Drs. Restuccia and Cohen presently are exploring a collaborative arrangement with Bocconi University for a cross-national comparison of hospital quality improvement (QI) activities in the U.S. and Italy. This effort would involve the administration of HPRP’s survey instruments (regarding QI activities and clinicians’ perceptions of quality) in a sample of Italian hospitals. Similar cross-national survey arrangements are being explored with several other European nations.
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