Health and Human Rights in Europe


Book Description

The area of 'health and human rights' is a new and emerging field under international and European human rights law and health law. Taking a 'health and human rights approach' means using international, European, and national human rights law in relation to a wide range of health issues, including access to healthcare, health data protection, the quality of pharmaceutical drugs, as well as medical-ethical issues, such as abortion and euthanasia. Human rights law can play an important role in promoting and protecting health, both nationally and internationally. It gives a legal and moral dimension to existing health-related approaches, and, as such, it can enrich other health-related disciplines, including medical law, health law, bio-law, bio-ethics, public health, and social medicine. There is, however, still very little understanding of the various and multiple legal interfaces between 'health' and 'human rights,' and of the implications of this approach for legal research and practi




Rethinking Health Care Ethics


Book Description

​The goal of this open access book is to develop an approach to clinical health care ethics that is more accessible to, and usable by, health professionals than the now-dominant approaches that focus, for example, on the application of ethical principles. The book elaborates the view that health professionals have the emotional and intellectual resources to discuss and address ethical issues in clinical health care without needing to rely on the expertise of bioethicists. The early chapters review the history of bioethics and explain how academics from outside health care came to dominate the field of health care ethics, both in professional schools and in clinical health care. The middle chapters elaborate a series of concepts, drawn from philosophy and the social sciences, that set the stage for developing a framework that builds upon the individual moral experience of health professionals, that explains the discontinuities between the demands of bioethics and the experience and perceptions of health professionals, and that enables the articulation of a full theory of clinical ethics with clinicians themselves as the foundation. Against that background, the first of three chapters on professional education presents a general framework for teaching clinical ethics; the second discusses how to integrate ethics into formal health care curricula; and the third addresses the opportunities for teaching available in clinical settings. The final chapter, "Empowering Clinicians", brings together the various dimensions of the argument and anticipates potential questions about the framework developed in earlier chapters.




Communities in Action


Book Description

In the United States, some populations suffer from far greater disparities in health than others. Those disparities are caused not only by fundamental differences in health status across segments of the population, but also because of inequities in factors that impact health status, so-called determinants of health. Only part of an individual's health status depends on his or her behavior and choice; community-wide problems like poverty, unemployment, poor education, inadequate housing, poor public transportation, interpersonal violence, and decaying neighborhoods also contribute to health inequities, as well as the historic and ongoing interplay of structures, policies, and norms that shape lives. When these factors are not optimal in a community, it does not mean they are intractable: such inequities can be mitigated by social policies that can shape health in powerful ways. Communities in Action: Pathways to Health Equity seeks to delineate the causes of and the solutions to health inequities in the United States. This report focuses on what communities can do to promote health equity, what actions are needed by the many and varied stakeholders that are part of communities or support them, as well as the root causes and structural barriers that need to be overcome.




Improving Healthcare Quality in Europe Characteristics, Effectiveness and Implementation of Different Strategies


Book Description

This volume, developed by the Observatory together with OECD, provides an overall conceptual framework for understanding and applying strategies aimed at improving quality of care. Crucially, it summarizes available evidence on different quality strategies and provides recommendations for their implementation. This book is intended to help policy-makers to understand concepts of quality and to support them to evaluate single strategies and combinations of strategies.




Assuring the Quality of Health Care in the European Union


Book Description

People have always travelled within Europe for work and leisure, although never before with the current intensity. Now, however, they are travelling for many other reasons, including the quest for key services such as health care. Whatever the reason for travelling, one question they ask is "If I fall ill, will the health care I receive be of a high standard?" This book examines, for the first time, the systems that have been put in place in all of the European Union's 27 Member States. The picture it paints is mixed. Some have well developed systems, setting standards based on the best available evidence, monitoring the care provided, and taking action where it falls short. Others need to overcome significant obstacles.




Health Systems Governance in Europe


Book Description

Health system governance in Europe : the role of European Union law and policy / Elias Mossialos ... [et al.] -- Health care and the EU : the law and policy patchwork / Tamara Hervey and Bart Vanhercke -- EU regulatory agencies and health protection / Govin Permanand and Ellen Vos -- The hard politics of soft law : the case of health / Scott L. Greer and Bart Vanhercke -- Public health policies / Martin McKee, Tamara Hervey and Anna Gilmore -- Fundamental rights and health care / Jean McHale -- EU competition law and public services / Tony Prosser -- EU competition law and health policy / Julia Lear, Elias Mossialos and Beatrix Karl -- Public procurement and state aid in national health care systems / Vassilis Hatzopoulos --Private health insurance and the internal market / Sarah Thomson and Elias Mossialos -- Free movement of services in the EU and health care / Wouter Gekiere, Rita Baeten and Willy Palm -- Enabling patient mobility in the EU : between free movement and coordination / Willy Palm and Irene A. Glinos -- The EU legal network on e-health / Stefaan Callens -- EU law and health professionals / Miek Peeters, Martin McKee and Sherry Merkur -- The EU pharmaceuticals market : parameters and pathways / Leigh Hancher




Organization and Financing of Public Health Services in Europe


Book Description

What are public health services? Countries across Europe understand what they are or what they should include differently. This study describes the experiences of nine countries detailing the ways they have opted to organize and finance public health services and train and employ their public health workforce. It covers England France Germany Italy the Netherlands Slovenia Sweden Poland and the Republic of Moldova and aims to give insights into current practice that will support decision-makers in their efforts to strengthen public health capacities and services. Each country chapter captures the historical background of public health services and the context in which they operate; sets out the main organizational structures; assesses the sources of public health financing and how it is allocated; explains the training and employment of the public health workforce; and analyses existing frameworks for quality and performance assessment. The study reveals a wide range of experience and variation across Europe and clearly illustrates two fundamentally different approaches to public health services: integration with curative health services (as in Slovenia or Sweden) or organization and provision through a separate parallel structure (Republic of Moldova). The case studies explore the context that explain this divergence and its implications. This study is the result of close collaboration between the European Observatory on Health Systems and Policies and the WHO Regional Office for Europe Division of Health Systems and Public Health. It accompanies two other Observatory publications Organization and financing of public health services in Europe and The role of public health organizations in addressing public health problems in Europe: the case of obesity alcohol and antimicrobial resistance (both forthcoming).