Main description:

This book provides an examination of the American health care system, a benchmark for cost-containment efforts, exploring two worlds: that of cost containment and that of the patient experience. It emphasises on the quality of care as perceived by the individual patient.

Contents:

Foreword -- Introduction -- The Struggle to Contain Health Care Costs: At What Price? The Current Worldwide Situation -- International Health Expenditure Trends: The United States Compared to Other Market-Oriented Countries -- Health Care Systems and Their Patients -- United States * 1 -- The Changing Structure of the Health Care Delivery System in the United States -- Hip Replacement in a Major Teaching Hospital: An American Case -- Canada * 1 -- The Quebec Health Care System in the Canadian Context: Impact on Medical Practice -- Letters from Patients to a Quebec Hospital -- France * 1 -- Review of the French Health Care System -- Experiences in the French Health Care System: Recollections of a Close Friend -- Germany * 1 -- The German Health Care System: Concurrent Solidarity, Freedom of Choice, and Cost Control -- German Health Care: A Patient's Perspective -- Australia * 1 -- The Ever-Changing Australian Health Care System: A Problem of Structure and Ideology -- The Australian Health System: One Person's Experience -- Japan * 1 -- Japan's Medical Care System -- Twenty Years of Care in Japan -- Sweden * 1 -- New Ideological Winds are Blowing in the Swedish Health Care System -- A Swedish Patient's Experience of the Medical Care System: Ideal and Reality, Power and Dependence -- New Zealand * 1 -- The New Zealand Health System -- The New Zealand Health System: A Patient's View -- Britain * 1 -- Britain's National Health Service Under Pressure -- Britain's National Health Service in 1986: Comments from a Native User -- Ussr * 1 -- Soviet Health Care in the Glasnost Era -- A Young Professional's Experience in the Soviet Health Care System -- Hungary * 1 -- The Health System of Hungary -- Health Care in Hungary: A Patient's Perspective -- People's Republic of China * 1 -- Modernization and Health Care in the People's Republic of Transition -- An American in China: Encounters with a Chinese Hospital -- An Overview -- Systems, Strategies, and Some Patient Encounters: A Discussion of Twelve Countries