HealthManagement, Volume 10, Issue 3 / 2008
France
Commission Report on Hospital Missions
In April, Gérard Larcher and the 22 other members of the commission appointed by the President turned in their final report. Their work started six months before and their task revolved around a formulation of hospital missions. 16 proposals have been articulated in order to better organise hospitals and energise public hospitals.
The commission recommends the creation of territorial hospital communities, and the elaboration of public service contracts. The status of hospitals should also be modernised. The hospital director should be the ultimate decision-maker for hospitalmanagement, which would enable a more reactive management in cooperation with the other hospital managers.
Territorial hospital communities would allow public hospitals to merge, based on common medical activities. Financial incentives would be put in place and the whole project reviewed after 2 years. Private for profit hospitals would also benefit from a new contractual framework for taking on public hospital services. Financial accessibility would be guaranteed.
As far as hospital personnel is concerned, the status of hospital doctors would be amended, in order to take their activity into account to calculate their remuneration. This wouldmake hospitalsmore attractive to doctors, as compared to private clinics which offer better pay.
Public hospitals would becomemore flexible and autonomous in order to improve performances.
All thesemeasures would enable hospitals to be financially sound as of 2012. These proposalsmight serve as a basis for the bill which should be presented by theMinister of Health in the fall.
South Korea
The new Asian medical travel hub? After building its economy on semiconductors,ships and steel, South Korea istouting its surgeons’ skills in the beautybusiness to carve out a new niche.Helped by active government support,a boomin cosmetic surgery and a poolof experienced surgeons, the countrywants to surpass Singapore, Thailandand India to become Asia’s new medicaltourismhub. The KoreanMinister ofHealth has recently stated that the governmentwould step up efforts to winparliamentary approval of a bill thatwould legalise profit-oriented medicalbrokerages linking hospitals and patients.
Hospitals have set an ambitious goal of 100,000 foreign patients annually by 2012. InMarch last year, 36hospitals and state agencies formed the Council for KoreanMedicineOverseasPromotion (CKMP) to tap the fast-growingmarket.
Belgium
A thousand future doctors saved by the Minister of Health Laurette Onkelinx, the new BelgianMinisterof Health, is going to publish a royaldecree allowing allmedical graduates,without exception, to practicemedicine.
Since 2004, the numerus clausus established in 1997 limited to 700 a year the number of Belgianmedical graduates who were legally allowed to practice medicine.
Until now, about a thousand students were thus considered as ‘surplus’. This situation will be corrected through a spreading of the excess over a number of years instead of a strict application of yearly quotas.
United Kingdom
Hospitals are using marketing techniques for the first time
TheNational Health Service (NHS)may soon and for the first time usemarketing tools for its various services.
Medical success stories must also be made public by hospitals, within an appropriate framework, andmarketing expenses must, according to the directive, be “proportional”.
Until now, hospitals were not allowed to canvass patients directly. But since patients, as of April, may for the first time freely choose their hospital and specialist, a liberalisation ofmarketing regulations was in order, as Minister in charge Johnson argued.
Germany
Many health establishments are facing insolvency The German association of hospital directors(VKD, Verband der KrankenhausdirektorenDeutschlands) has expressedits concern over massiveclosures of German hospitals. Accordingto indications from its president,Heinz Kölking, the capping of budgetsshould be lifted urgently and hospitalsshould clearly be awarded additionalfunding.
The unjustifiable stabilisation levy, which hospitals are now paying to health insurance to the amount of 300 million euros per year, should also disappear. If nothing is done, several hundreds health establishments might have to close down within the next five years. Some hospitals have already had to transfer their property in order to be able to survive financially.
