News

There is general recognition healthcare systems need to shift from paying for volume to paying for outcomes, but this is a difficult change to make. A new incentive system in France for funding remote monitoring of chronic diseases, points the way

A study benchmarking outcomes for 32,000 women following hysterectomy has led to the development of a scorecard that can be used to track outcomes in all surgical specialties

Some stroke survivors say they are disregarding general practitioners' (GP) advice on secondary prevention medications, such as statins, with some patients stopping their medication completely, according to a study of an online stroke forum

The first assessment in the EU of interventions to help people quit smoking and the comparative cost effectiveness of different approaches shows that all current interventions are more cost-effective than trying to stop without assistance

Every £1 spent on public health returns an extra £14 on the original investment, on average, and in some cases, significantly more than that, according to a review of the evidence, published in the Journal of Epidemiology & Community Health

Remote monitoring technology is the key to easing the NHS bed blocking crisis, according to a report by the Institution of Mechanical Engineers

A definition of patient centricity, drawn up in collaboration with patients and carers, has been published for use by the pharmaceutical industry.

Research carried out by the UK medical research charity Wellcome Trust last year found only a third of people felt they had a good understanding of how the National Health Service (NHS) uses patient information

Patients with hardened arteries who had good communication with their healthcare providers were less likely to use the emergency room and more likely to comply with their treatment plans

Integrated care is a fundamental component of much-needed health and social care system reforms

Peer-to-peer patient support groups have been shown to improve patient health literacy and increase patient empowerment in health decision-making

In March the EU health commissioner Vytenis Andriukaitis formally launched the European Reference Networks

An article in the latest edition of WHO Europe’s Eurohealth assess the benefits of big data in healthcare and how policy changes in Europe might affect patients, policy-makers, providers and scientists.

In the face of chronic disease, an ageing population and a shortage of trained staff, Europe urgently needs to devise and implement new delivery models that will make its healthcare systems sustainable in the future.

The science of healthcare is underdeveloped. A first-in-Europe institute opening in Cambridge aims to change this, providing evidence of how to organise health to improve outcomes

ICHOM standards will soon cover half the global disease burden. Christina Åkerman, head of the consortium tells Science|Business their application will highlight inequalities, give greater priority to quality of life and help healthcare systems extract more value from restricted budgets