scholarly journals Sustainability of Healthcare Finance and Proposals for Reform Following COVID-19

2021 ◽  
Vol 31 (1) ◽  
pp. 87-96
Author(s):  
Kazumasa Oguro
Keyword(s):  
Healthcare Finance

Quality assurance and quality improvement in medical practice – Part 1. Definition and importance of quality in medical practice

2012 ◽  
Vol 153 (3) ◽  
pp. 83-92
Author(s):  
Sándor Gődény
Keyword(s):  
Quality Assurance ◽  
Health Status ◽  
Quality Management ◽  
Medical Practice ◽  
Quality Measurement ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Management Quality ◽  
Hungarian Population ◽  
Healthcare Finance

In Hungary healthcare finance has decreased in proportion with the GDP, while the health status of the population is still ranks among the worst in the European Union. Since healthcare finance is not expected to increase, the number of practicing doctors per capita is continuously decreasing. In the coming years it is an important question that in this situation what methods can be used to prevent further deterioration of the health status of the Hungarian population, and within this is the role of the quality approach, and different methods of quality management. In the present and the forthcoming two articles those standpoints will be summarized which support the need for the integration of quality assurance in the everyday medical practice. In the first part the importance of quality thinking, quality management, quality assurance, necessity of quality measurement and improvement, furthermore, advantages of the quality systems will be discussed. Orv. Hetil., 2012, 153, 83–92.

scholarly journals Improved Algorithms for Conservative Exploration in Bandits

2020 ◽  
Vol 34 (04) ◽  
pp. 3962-3969
Author(s):  
Evrard Garcelon ◽  
Mohammad Ghavamzadeh ◽  
Alessandro Lazaric ◽  
Matteo Pirotta
Keyword(s):  
State Of The Art ◽  
Digital Marketing ◽  
Learning Problem ◽  
Online Learning Algorithms ◽  
Empirical Performance ◽  
Regret Bounds ◽  
Healthcare Finance ◽  
And Robotics ◽  
Novel Algorithm ◽  
Real World Problems

In many fields such as digital marketing, healthcare, finance, and robotics, it is common to have a well-tested and reliable baseline policy running in production (e.g., a recommender system). Nonetheless, the baseline policy is often suboptimal. In this case, it is desirable to deploy online learning algorithms (e.g., a multi-armed bandit algorithm) that interact with the system to learn a better/optimal policy under the constraint that during the learning process the performance is almost never worse than the performance of the baseline itself. In this paper, we study the conservative learning problem in the contextual linear bandit setting and introduce a novel algorithm, the Conservative Constrained LinUCB (CLUCB2). We derive regret bounds for CLUCB2 that match existing results and empirically show that it outperforms state-of-the-art conservative bandit algorithms in a number of synthetic and real-world problems. Finally, we consider a more realistic constraint where the performance is verified only at predefined checkpoints (instead of at every step) and show how this relaxed constraint favorably impacts the regret and empirical performance of CLUCB2.

A Study of Use Cases for Smart Contracts Using Blockchain Technology

2021 ◽  
pp. 1823-1844
Author(s):  
S R Mani Sekhar ◽  
Siddesh G M ◽  
Swapnil Kalra ◽  
Shaswat Anand
Keyword(s):  
Natural Disaster ◽  
Vital Role ◽  
Use Cases ◽  
Use Case ◽  
Smart Contracts ◽  
Digital Identity ◽  
Blockchain Technology ◽  
Smart Contract ◽  
Healthcare Finance ◽  
Natural Disaster Management

Blockchain technology is an emerging and rapidly growing technology in the current world scenario. It is a collection of records connected through cryptography. They play a vital role in smart contracts. Smart contracts are present in blockchains which are self-controlled and trustable. It can be integrated across various domains like healthcare, finance, self-sovereign identity, governance, logistics management and home care, etc. The purpose of this article is to analyze the various use cases of smart contracts in different domains and come up with a model which may be used in the future. Subsequently, a detailed description of a smart contract and blockchain is provided. Next, different case-studies related to five different domains is discussed with the help of use case diagrams. Finally, a solution for natural disaster management has been proposed by integrating smart contract, digital identity, policies and blockchain technologies, which can be used effectively for providing relief to victims during times of natural disaster.

scholarly journals Did expansion of health insurance coverage reduce horizontal inequity in healthcare finance? A decomposition analysis for China

BMJ Open ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. e025184
Author(s):  
Zhonghua Wang ◽  
Xue Zhou ◽  
Yukuan Gao ◽  
Mingsheng Chen ◽  
Andrew J Palmer ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Health Insurance ◽  
Rural Areas ◽  
Urban Areas ◽  
Decomposition Analysis ◽  
Healthcare Financing ◽  
Horizontal Inequity ◽  
Financing System ◽  
Percentage Points ◽  
Out Of Pocket Payments ◽  
Healthcare Finance

Objectives‘Horizontal inequity’ in healthcare finance occurs when people with equal income contribute unequally to healthcare payments. Prior research is lacking on horizontal inequity in China. Accordingly, this study set out to examine horizontal inequity in the Chinese healthcare financing system in 2002 and 2007 through two rounds of national household health surveys.DesignTwo rounds of cross-sectional study.SettingHeilongjiang Province, China.ParticipantsAdopting a multistage stratified random sampling, 3841 households with 11 572 individuals in 2003 and 5530 households with 15 817 individuals in 2008 were selected.MethodsThe decomposition method of Aronsonet alwas used in the present study to measure the redistributive effects and horizontal inequity in healthcare finance.FindingsOver the period 2002–2007, the absolute value of horizontal inequity in total healthcare payments decreased from 93.85 percentage points to 35.50 percentage points in urban areas, and from 113.19 percentage points to 37.12 percentage points in rural areas. For public health insurance, it increased from 17.84 percentage points to 28.02 percentage points in urban areas, and decreased from 127.93 percentage points to 0.36 percentage points in rural areas. Horizontal inequity in out-of-pocket payments decreased from 79.92 percentage points to 24.83 percentage points in urban areas, and from 127.71 percentage points to 53.10 percentage points in rural areas.ConclusionsOur results show that horizontal inequity in total healthcare financing decreased over the period 2002–2007 in China. In addition, out-of-pocket payments contributed most to the extent of horizontal inequity, which were reduced both in urban and rural areas over the period 2002–2007.

scholarly journals Adopt-a-Hospital Project: An instructional tool for hospital administration

2016 ◽  
Vol 5 (6) ◽  
pp. 63
Author(s):  
Asa B. Wilson
Keyword(s):  
Experiential Learning ◽  
Acute Care ◽  
Hospital Setting ◽  
Acute Care Hospital ◽  
Hospital Administration ◽  
Care Hospital ◽  
Health Administration ◽  
Hospital Operations ◽  
Specific Career ◽  
Healthcare Finance

Backgournd: More often than not, university health administration curriculums are generic and are not foundational to a specific career track. This is especially true in relation to the transition from graduation to a hospital administration career progression. The overarching question is, “How does one prepare themselves for senior leadership in an acute care hospital setting?”Objective: A semester-long assignment – Adopt-a-Hospital Project – is discussed in the context of a healthcare finance course as tool for preparing students to think administratively regarding hospital operations. This Project is presented as an academic foundation preparing students for the required semester-long internship placement in an acute care hospital.Results: The Project-Internship sequence has, over a four-year period, demonstrated its value as an academic and experiential learning bridge from the academy to the world of work. Informal, qualitative findings are discussed in terms of a future quantitative study incorporating: (1) preceptor surveys, (2) intern surveys, and (3) focus group feedback.Conclusions: The Project-Internship sequence fosters a link between academic content and experiential learning in an acute care hospital – thereby augmenting one’s post-graduation readiness to pursue a hospital administration career track.

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