Medical savings accounts: a core feature of Singapore's health care system.

In 1984 Singapore adopted a system of Medisave accounts, individually owned accounts used to pay for many of the health care expenditures that in Germany would normally be covered by the obligatory or private health insurance. The fact that people are spending their own money rather than that of a third-party insurer has helped to curtail Singapore's health care costs, which were about 2.6% of gross domestic product in 1999 (Germany: 10.

[Laparoscopic single patient use instruments: expensive outsourcing of product quality?].

The supply of medical goods is an important critical success factor in German hospitals. One major managerial area in the procurement concerns the decision between single patient use (SPU) and multiple patient use (MPU) products. Especially laparoscopic instruments which are generally expensive are a field of interest for decision makers.

[Interpersonal communication as a factor in successful development of a decision-oriented information systems model in the hospital].

The success of a decision-oriented hospital information system is primarily depending on the way of integration of the involved professionals in the development. The technical realisation of those systems is already supported by several tools. Interpersonal interactions on the other hand which take about 40 percent of the time of development are still methodically ignored.

[Virtual workshop for hospital management].

Due to a survey of the CKM insufficient communication among different professional groups is one of the main causes for unused quality reserves and neglected potentials of efficiency in German hospitals. An essential reason for this insufficiency lies in the traditional concepts of education which are designed for the specialties of the different professional groups. With this these concepts only impart key qualifications such as social authority, ability for communication and ability for problem-solving in a small amount.

Dalteparin for deep venous thrombosis: a hospital-in-the-home program.

Objective: To assess the efficacy, safety and cost savings of home treatment of lower-limb deep venous thrombosis (DVT).

Setting: A hospital-in-the-home treatment program.

Patients: One hundred patients with acute lower limb DVT (53 proximal, 47 distal), and no contraindication to home treatment, were entered into the program from March 1995 to February 1997.