Evaluation of Continuity of Care: What Can Physician Survey Add?

Background: The evaluation of continuity of care is usually based on the indicators of the frequency of patients' contacts with specific providers. There are some first attempts to use physician survey for the evaluation.

Objective: Is to get additional information on the continuity of care in Russia by a newly developed physician questionnaire with detailed questions related to the specific areas of providers' interaction in the health system.

The hard way from the Beveridge to the Bismarck model of health finance: Expectations and reality in Russia.

Most post-Soviet countries have introduced mandatory health insurance (MHI) systems which completely or partially replaced national health systems known as budgetary models. In Russia, an attempt was made to introduce a competitive MHI model with multiple health insurers. The current MHI system has, however, acquired an increasing number of features inherent in the previous budgetary model.

Health workforce policy in the Russian Federation: How to overcome a shortage of physicians?

Russia looks for ways to overcome a shortage of physicians. Health workforce policy is focused on training an additional number of physicians. The current efforts have reduced some areas of the shortage but failed to solve the problem due to many factors that reproduce the deficit.

What next for the polyclinic? New models of primary health care are required in many former Soviet Union countries.

Background: There is unfinished reform in primary care in Russia and other former Soviet Union (FSU) countries. The traditional 'Semashko' multi-specialty polyclinic model has been retained, while its major characteristics are increasingly questioned. The search for a new model is on a health policy agenda.

Structural changes in the Russian health care system: do they match European trends?

Unlabelled: ВACKGROUND: In the last two decades, health care systems (HCS) in the European countries have faced global challenges and have undergone structural changes with the focus on early disease prevention, strengthening primary care, changing the role of hospitals, etc. Russia has inherited the Semashko model from the USSR with dominance of inpatient care, and has been looking for the ways to improve the structure of service delivery. This paper compares the complex of structural changes in the Russian and the European HCS.