There Is No Perfect Health System
"Perspective" article in Health Affairs by Elizabeth A. McGlynn - "Extensive research into quality of care in different countries yields no conclusive findings that one system is better or worse than others. Quality does not necessarily vary with financing mechanisms; even countries with single-payer systems have variations in quality. Quality is not directly related to the amount spent on health care, since the highest-spending country (the United States) does not have measurably better outcomes. Investments in the quality measurement and reporting systems in all countries would substantially increase the opportunities to learn from cross-national comparisons."  
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Outcomes-Based Drug Coverage in British Columbia
Article in Health Affairs - "For the past decade the provincial drug plan in British Columbia has based the allocation of public subsidy on scientific standards of evidence. Coverage policies under B.C. PharmaCare are marked by the restriction of public subsidy until manufacturers provide valid evidence of a comparative health outcome advantage versus therapeutic alternatives. Implementing and maintaining such outcomes-based coverage policies has required a system of evidentiary review and support. Since 1994 the Therapeutics Initiative at the University of British Columbia has provided provincial decisionmakers with such support. We describe lessons from the B.C. experience for jurisdictions interested in basing coverage on evidence of proven comparative advantage for patients’ health."  
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When Things Go Wrong: How Health Care Organizations Deal With Major Failures
Article in Health Affairs - "Concern about patient safety, caused in part by high-profile major failures in which many patients have been harmed, is rising worldwide. This paper draws on examples of such failures from several countries to analyze how these events are dealt with and to identify lessons and recommendations for policy. Better systems are needed for reporting and investigating failures and for implementing the lessons learned. The culture of secrecy, professional protectionism, defensiveness, and deference to authority is central to such major failures, and preventing future failures depends on cultural as much as structural change in health care systems and organizations."  
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Trends and Indicators in the Changing Health Care Marketplace, 2004 Update
This page at the Kaiser Family Foundation web site provides an index to different section sof this report, which "presents information on key trends in the health care marketplace of interest to policymakers, public interest groups, the media, and industry analysts and leaders. This chartbook updates many of the exhibits included in earlier reports..."  
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Mental health concerns raised (UK)
Story at icWales - "A Welsh mental health charity has used the occasion of its first birthday to raise concerns about the 'desperate' plight of services in Wales. The call by Hafal follows in the wake of what it called a 'damning' report by the Commission for Health Improvement (CHI)..."  
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