Derived from the renowned multi-volume International Encyclopaedia of Laws, this convenient volume provides comprehensive analysis of the law affecting the physician-patient relationship in Austria. Cutting across the traditional compartments with which lawyers are familiar, medical law is concerned with issues arising from this relationship, and not with the many wider juridical relations involved in the broader field of health care law. After a general introduction, the book systematically describes law related to the medical profession, proceeding from training, licensing, and other aspects of access to the profession, through disciplinary and professional liability and medical ethics considerations and quality assurance, to such aspects of the physician-patient relationship as rights and duties of physicians and patients, consent, privacy, and access to medical records. Also covered are specific issues such as organ transplants, human medical research, abortion, and euthanasia, as well as matters dealing with the physician in relation to other health care providers, health care insurance, and the health care system. Succinct and practical, this book will prove to be of great value to professional organizations of physicians, nurses, hospitals, and relevant government agencies. Lawyers representing parties with interests in Austria will welcome this very useful guide, and academics and researchers will appreciate its comparative value as a contribution to the study of medical law in the international context.

No two markets for voluntary health insurance (VHI) are identical. All differ in some way because they are heavily shaped by the nature and performance of publicly financed health systems and by the contexts in which they have evolved. This volume contains short structured profiles of markets for VHI in 34 countries in Europe. These are drawn from European Union member states plus Armenia Iceland Georgia Norway the Russian Federation Switzerland and Ukraine. The book is aimed at policy-makers and researchers interested in knowing more about how VHI works in practice in a wide range of contexts. Each profile written by one or more local experts identifies gaps in publicly-financed health coverage describes the role VHI plays outlines the way in which the market for VHI operates summarises public policy towards VHI including major developments over time and highlights national debates and challenges. The book is part of a study on VHI in Europe prepared jointly by the European Observatory on Health Systems and Policies and the WHO Regional Office for Europe. A companion volume provides an analytical overview of VHI markets across the 34 countries.

This publication explores some of the key issues, ranging from interpreting the evidence base to assessing the policy context for, and approaches to, chronic disease management across Europe. Drawing on 12 detailed country reports (available in a second, online volume), the study provides insights into the range of care models and the people involved in delivering these; payment mechanisms and service user access; and challenges faced by countries in the implementation and evaluation of these novel approaches.

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.

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.

In response to the call of the 48th World Health Assembly for a substantial revision of the International Health Regulations, this new edition of the Regulations will enter into force on June 15, 2007. The purpose and scope of the Regulations are "to prevent, protect against, control and provide a public health response to the international spread of disease in ways that are commensurate with and restricted to public health risks, and which avoid unnecessary interference with international traffic and trade." The Regulations also cover certificates applicable to international travel and transport, and requirements for international ports, airports and ground crossings.

This monograph is the most comprehensive comparative law study of legal responsibility arising from medical care presently available. It is written for doctors as well as health care administrators and legal professionals. Focusing on the problems of civil liability, it presents the development, points of contact with, and differences between the modern law of medical liability stemming from both the Common Law and Civil Law traditions of England, Scotland, Eire, New Zealand, Australia, Canada, the United States, South Africa, France, Belgium, West Germany, Switzerland, and Austria. It demonstrates the extent to which both problems of medical law and trends towards their solution are already familiar in these legal systems. The work describes principles and trends, not by confronting the reader with national reports' and separate chapters on different legal systems; rather, the relevant legal problems are analyzed from an integrative, comparative viewpoint. The main thrust of the presentation is the analysis of numerous court decisions -- the number of which is rising ominously in the United States -- on the civil liability of doctors and hospitals for damages arising from substandard treatment or inadequate disclosure of information to the patient. References to the legal and medical literature, indexes, and a refined system of cross-references, together with an important collection of appendices covering legal and ethical declarations make this work accessible as a handbook and reference work for the legal and social problems encountered today in the wide area of law, ethics, and medicine.