The association between carers' satisfaction with services delivered by district nurses (DNs), general practitioners (GPs), hospital doctors (HDs), and the health and social services in general (HSS), and various service and non-service variables was examined to assess whether satisfaction is more a reflection of the service characteristics, the non-service related factors, or attributable equally to both. Analysis was undertaken on a sub-sample of the 'Regional Study of Care for the Dying', a retrospective survey assessing the perceptions of 3696 carers of services delivered to deceased in their last year of life. The sub-sample consisted of 1858 carers of deceased who were relatives or close friends/neighbours, whose deceased died from cancer, and whose death was not sudden. Satisfaction variables were derived from questions recorded in the survey. In bivariate and multivariate analysis, larger odds ratio were found in association with service than non-service variables. For example, high satisfaction with DNs was strongly associated with visiting the patient very frequently (OR= 10.8, 95% CI= 4.5-25.9); and the GP visiting 20 times or more (OR= 5.5, 95% CI= 3.6-8.5), and informing the carer of the diagnosis (0R= 3.3, 95% CI= 2.3-4.7) were associated with high satisfaction with GPs. Examples of non-service factor associations included, for example, good postbereavement psychological state positively associated with high satisfaction with DNs (OR 2.3, 95% CI= 1.6-3.4) and GPs (OR= 2.0, 95% CI= 1.4-2.8); while perceiving caring as rewarding as opposed to a burden was positively associated with high satisfaction with DNs (OR= 3.7, 95% CI= 1.8-7.5) and negatively associated with high satisfaction with hospital doctors (OR= 0.46, 95% CI= 0.24- 0.86). The fmdings reflect, in part, the literature on satisfaction in other areas of health care, but there are some differences, for example sociodemographic variables such as age, sex, religious denomination, and housing tenure were found to have no role in predicting satisfaction with DNs, GPs, and HDs. In post-bereavement surveys evaluating palliative care, carers' satisfaction reflects service characteristics but it is also partly determined by important patient and carer characteristics.

Social health . lnsurance in developed countries , lS facing problems concerning cost control. In developing countries, problems are of low coverage, the provision of care to include access to the private sector, equity in access to services, as well as cost control. In Thailand, the recently introduced social insurance scheme requires the insured or their employer to select a main contractor to provide care a general hospital with >100 beds - which is paid on a capitation basis. In response the private sector is developing provider networks to ensure health services to be more accessible and to attract insured workers to enroll with the network. The primary concern of the research is to evaluate MEDSEC, the biggest private network in terms of the number of facilities and insured covered. Nopparat, the biggest publicly-organized network, was selected for comparison with MEDSEC. The aim is to identify policy recommendations regarding networks and their internal payment mechanisms. The obj ecti ves are to examine: how MEDSEC is organized and how it has grown over time; the health seeking behaviour of the insured of MEDSEC; and the utilization rate, payment system, and quality of care of MEDSEC. Four substudies were done: the MEDSEC operating and financial system; the health seeking behaviour of the insured, their utilization rate, knowledge, and satisfaction; the providers' knowledge and attitudes; and evaluation of quality of care concerning four aspects: infrastructure, patient satisfaction, outpatient drug treatment, and inpatient care. The study identifies policy implications concerning the functions of a good network office, the monitoring of a network's quality of care, the payment system of networks, and improving the knowledge of the insured concerning the regulation on access to care.

Hong Kong's aging population has, increased demand for vascular services. Currently, vascular surgery is subsumed under general surgery. The workload on both general surgery and vascular surgery is demanding and hence, not conductive to the development of vascular surgery. The volume of surgery, particularly emergency surgery provided by the Hospital Authority units varies significantly. The collaboration and differentiation of labor at present is not well defined in many centers. This may lead to unnecessary competition and duplication of resources in the long run. This project examined if there is room for improvement in the present situation and provides evidence for relevant service reconfiguration and discusses how Hong Kong can learn from some overseas examples to enhance quality of services delivered to patients. / published_or_final_version / Public Health / Master / Master of Public Health

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Virginia Commonwealth University, 2007. / Prepared for: School of Nursing. Bibliography: leaves 120-145. Also available online.

Diss. (sammanfattning) Uppsala : Univ., 2001. / Härtill 4 uppsatser.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Old Dominion University, 1998. / eContent provider-neutral record in process. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (M.S.)--University of Missouri-Columbia, 2004. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 41-47). Also available on the Internet.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Old Dominion University, 1998. / eContent provider-neutral record in process. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (M.S.)--University of Missouri-Columbia, 2004. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 41-47). Also available on the Internet.

Thesis (M.D.)--University of Hong Kong, 2003. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 258-283) Also available in print.