Hospitals are the most essential and most costly component of health systems. They account for up to two-thirds of health spending. As a result, they greatly influence the overall quality of health care. As governments search for the best ways to monitor and evaluate hospital performance, policy-makers must identify the best ways to maximize hospital outcomes, patient satisfaction, and operational efficiency. Recent increases in healthcare costs have generated a number of proposals for the organization of publicly financed hospitals. These include new management models, new payment systems and clinical guidelines and disease treatment protocols inspired by evidence-based guidelines.

Drawing on an eclectic array of research and evaluative studies culled from a mix of sources, this volume analyzes Brazilian hospital performance along several policy dimensions including resource allocation and use within hospitals, hospital payment mechanisms, organizational and governance arrangements, management practices, and regulation and quality. An agenda for hospital reform is proposed which synthesizes priorities that are integral to improving hospital performance-and which should be considered for implementation in the near and medium term.

Social Health Insurance (SHI) is one of the vehicles in achieving Universal Health Coverage. However, in many low- and middle-income countries, implementation of SHI failed to provide efficient and effective coverage due to poor provider payment method. Indonesia has introduced social health insurance in 2014. With the population of more than 270 million, Indonesia is the biggest country in the world that implemented SHI with casemix system (INA-CBG) as the prospective provider payment method. In this book, we presented an outcome of a study implemented in the largest hospital in Jakarta, Indonesia that compared the impact of using casemix system as provider payment method with fee-for-service. A total 32,227 outpatients and 8,270 inpatients medical records were reviewed and included in the study. In addition, a survey was also conducted among billing administrators to assess the cost of the billing process and their perceptions on the two reimbursement methods. The total hospital charges, length of stay of inpatients, rate of unnecessary admissions and cost of billing process were among the indicators of efficiency compared in the study between the two provider payment methods. The book provides comprehensive evidence to confirm the advantages of casemix system as an efficient provider payment method in SHI programme.

It has been more than 20 years since Brazil's 1988 Constitution formally established the Unified Health System (Sistema Unico de Saude, SUS). Building on reforms that started in the 1980s, the SUS represented a significant break with the past, establishing health care as a fundamental right and duty of the state and initiating a process of fundamentally transforming Brazil's health system to achieve this goal. This report aims to answer two main questions. First is have the SUS reforms transformed the health system as envisaged 20 years ago? Second, have the reforms led to improvements with regard to access to services, financial protection, and health outcomes? In addressing these questions, the report revisits ground covered in previous assessments, but also brings to bear additional or more recent data and places Brazil's health system in an international context. The report shows that the health system reforms can be credited with significant achievements. The report points to some promising directions for health system reforms that will allow Brazil to continue building on the achievements made to date. Although it is possible to reach some broad conclusions, there are many gaps and caveats in the story. A secondary aim of the report is to consider how some of these gaps can be filled through improved monitoring of health system performance and future research. The introduction presents a short review of the history of the SUS, describes the core principles that underpinned the reform, and offers a brief description of the evaluation framework used in the report. Chapter two presents findings on the extent to which the SUS reforms have transformed the health system, focusing on delivery, financing, and governance. Chapter three asks whether the reforms have resulted in improved outcomes with regard to access to services, financial protection, quality, health outcomes, and efficiency. The con

Hospitals are at the center of the health care universe in Brazil. When ill, many Brazilians go straight to the hospital for want of a family doctor or primary care network. Hospitals are a critical part of the government's budget, absorbing nearly 70 percent of public spending on health. Hospitals influence the ebb and flow of politician's careers when hospital mishaps hit the headlines or the limelight falls on high-performing hospitals. Hospitals are at the forefront of policy discussions in Brazil. The discussions reflect their promise as centers of technological innovation and medical advances as well as widespread concern about their cost and quality. Brazilian hospitals are important to many people for many different reasons. What makes hospitals important is easy to understand. What makes hospitals deliver quality care efficiently or not is much harder to grasp. Can Brazil improve the performance of its hospitals? The evidence presented in this volume suggests that the answer is yes. However, it will take strong leadership, coordinated efforts of federal, state, and municipal governments, direct engagement with the private health sector, and systematic but continuous vision, policies, and actions. Such enabling factors have been generally weak or absent in the Brazilian health system. Promising initiatives have often been gutted or scrapped after changes of government.