Effectiveness of telehealth in preventive care: a study protocol for a randomised controlled trial of tele-exercise programme involving older people with possible sarcopenia or at risk of fall.

Background: Continuous loss of muscle mass and strength are the consequences of the ageing process, which increase the risk of falls among older people. Falls can lead to severe consequences such as bone fractures and hampered physical and psychological well-being. Regular exercise is the key to reversing muscle atrophy and relieving sarcopenia.

Medical Savings Account balance and outpatient utilization: Evidence from Guangzhou, China.

Medical Savings Account (MSA) is a financing instrument designed to reduce consumer-side moral hazards. The Urban Employee Basic Medical Insurance (UEBMI) scheme in China has an MSA component in addition to a Social Risk-pooling Fund. This study examines the association between MSA balance and outpatient utilization in Guangzhou, China, and determines MSA's impact on utilization under different circumstances.

Towards a balanced performance measurement system in a public health care organization.

Purpose: This article attempts to devise an integrated performance measurement framework to assess the Hong Kong Hospital Authority (HA) management system by harnessing previous performance measurement systems.

Design/methodology/approach: An integrated evaluative framework based on the balanced score card (BSC) was developed and applied using the case study method and longitudinal data to evaluate the HA's performance management system.

Findings: The authors unveil evolving HA performance indicators (P1).

Rationing hospital services in Hong Kong: priority setting by clinicians using the Delphi method.

This article presents the results of a demonstration project of priority setting by clinicians in Hong Kong's public hospitals. Thirty-five chiefs-of-service of public hospitals in Hong Kong participated in a three-round Delphi exercise on identifying interventions that should be charged in public hospitals on the basis of questionable effectiveness and other reasons. A total of 246 interventions were identified in the first round, 126 of which received a positive score (indicating a high degree of consensus amongst the participants) at the end of the final round.