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On January 2020, the WHO Director General declared that the outbreak constitutes a Public Health Emergency of International Concern. The world has faced a worldwide spread crisis and is still dealing with it. The present paper represents a white paper concerning the tough lessons we have learned from the COVID-19 pandemic. Thus, an international and heterogenous multidisciplinary panel of very differentiated people would like to share global experiences and lessons with all interested and especially those responsible for future healthcare decision making. With the present paper, international and heterogenous multidisciplinary panel of very differentiated people would like to share global experiences and lessons with all interested and especially those responsible for future healthcare decision making.

Background Healthcare services is an expanding international market with which national healthcare systems engage, and from which they benefit, to greater and lesser degrees. This study examines the case of the China-England engagement in healthcare services as a vehicle for illuminating the way in which such market relationships are constructed. Findings China and England have different approaches to the international healthcare services market. Aware of the knowledge and technology gaps between itself and the leading capitalist nations of the West in healthcare, as in other sectors, the Chinese leadership has encouraged a variety of international engagements to facilitate the bridging of these gaps including accessing new supply and demand relationships in international markets. These engagements are situated within an approach to health system development based on establishing broad policy directions, allowing a degree of local innovation, initiating and evaluating pilot studies, and promulgating new programmatic frameworks at central and local levels. The assumption is that the new knowledge and technologies are integrated into this approach and implemented under the guidance of Chinese experts and leaders. England’s healthcare system has the knowledge resources to provide the supply to meet at least some of the China demand but has yet to develop fully the means to enable an efficient market response, though such economic engagement is supported by the UK’s trade related departments of state. As a result, the development of China-England commercial relationships in patient care, professional education and hospital and healthcare service development has been led largely by high status NHS Trusts and private sector organisations with the entrepreneurial capacity to exploit their market position. Drawing on their established international clinicians and commercial teams with experience of domestic private sector provision, these institutions have built trust-based collaborations sufficiently robust to facilitate demand-supply relationships in the international healthcare services market. Often key to the development of relations required to make commercial exchange feasible and practicable are a range of international brokers with the skills and capacity to provide the necessary linkage with individual healthcare consumers and institutional clients in China. Integral to the broker role, and often supplied by the broker itself, are the communication technologies of telemedicine to enable the interaction between consumer and healthcare provider, be this in patient care, professional education or healthcare service development. Conclusions Although England’s healthcare system has the knowledge required to respond to China’s market demand and such economic engagement is supported and actively encouraged by the UK’s trade related departments of state, the response is constrained by multiple domestic demands on its resources and by the limits of the NHS approach to marketisation in healthcare.

ObjectivesTo measure the use of healthcare services and assistive devices by centenarians in five countries.DesignCross-sectional study using a survey questionnaire.SettingCommunity-dwelling and institutionalised centenarians living in Japan, France, Switzerland, Sweden and Denmark.Participants1253 participants aged 100 or in their 100th year of life, of whom 1004 (80.1%) were female and 596 (47.6%) lived in institutions.Main outcome measuresRecent use of medical visits, nursing care at home, home-delivered meals, acute care hospital stays overnight, professional assessments such as sight tests, mobility aids and other assistive devices. A set of national healthcare system indicators was collected to help interpret differences between countries.ResultsThere was considerable variability in the healthcare services and assistive devices used by centenarians depending on their country and whether they were community-dwelling or institutionalised. In contrast to the relatively homogeneous rates of hospitalisation in the past year (around 20%), community-dwelling centenarians reported widely ranging rates of medical visits in the past 3 months (at least one visit, from 32.2% in Japan to 86.6% in France). The proportion of community-dwellers using a mobility device to get around indoors (either a walking aid or a wheelchair) ranged from 48.3% in Japan to 79.2% in Sweden. Participants living in institutions and reporting the use of a mobility device ranged from 78.6% in Japan to 98.2% in Denmark.ConclusionsOur findings suggest major differences in care received by centenarians across countries. Some may result from the characteristics of national healthcare systems, especially types of healthcare insurance coverage and the amounts of specific resources available. However, unexplored factors also seem to be at stake and may be partly related to personal health and cultural differences.

While the significance of strengthening the biomedical workforce in resource-limited settings has been widely acknowledged, there remains a paucity of information specific to the local context. In this regard, we underscore the importance of formulating a biomedical engineering policy based on empirical evidence. To provide such evidence, we conducted an analysis of the government-led biomedical training program in Tanzania, titled 'Capacity Enhancement of Medical Equipment Technical Services (CEOMETS)'. The program demonstrated statistically significant outcomes at the individual level, as evidenced by a T-test comparing pre- and post-self-assessments of self-efficacy indicators from 2018 to 2022 (n=121) (***p < 0.001). However, the program's impact was largely confined to individual-level capacity building, with limited effects at the systemic level. The findings also revealed substantial structural and institutional gaps, as well as a lack of engagement from global stakeholders and key actors in the field of biomedical engineering. From this perspective, therefore, we emphasize the necessity of two key preconditions. First, on a national level, there is an urgent need to develop strategic plans, guidelines, and workforce policies that formally integrate biomedical engineers into efforts to strengthen the health system in Tanzania. The other arm is a way to call for action to the global health players to engage more actively in supporting biomedical engineering development in such contexts. Ultimately, this perspective paper aims to set a milestone in establishing the policy-making process regarding biomedical engineering as a health policy issue in Tanzania.

Why has Egypt, a pioneer of organ transplantation, been reluctant to pass a national organ transplant law for more than three decades? This book analyzes the national debate over organ transplantation in Egypt as it has unfolded during a time of major social and political transformation—including mounting dissent against a brutal regime, the privatization of health care, advances in science, the growing gap between rich and poor, and the Islamic revival. Sherine Hamdy recasts bioethics as a necessarily political project as she traces the moral positions of patients in need of new tissues and organs, doctors uncertain about whether transplantation is a “good” medical or religious practice, and Islamic scholars. Her richly narrated study delves into topics including current definitions of brain death, the authority of Islamic fatwas, reports about the mismanagement of toxic waste predisposing the poor to organ failure, the Egyptian black market in organs, and more. Incorporating insights from a range of disciplines, Our Bodies Belong to God sheds new light on contemporary Islamic thought, while challenging the presumed divide between religion and science, and between ethics and politics.

This study aimed to determine the efficient factors that potentially lead to the barriers of developing medical tourism in South Korea. To explore the current medical tourism trend, a qualitative procedure was adopted. Besides analyzing the current situation of medical tourism in Korea through a systematic searching on the available information and publications, in-depth-interviews were conducted to collect data from relevant authorities and representatives of medical tourism associations in this country. The result revealed, although government have supported this industry, that lack of specialty and expertise among the health care practitioners in the scope of cross cultural communication, seems to be the core barrier to development of medical tourism in Korea. Demands for convenient promotional activities, policy making and action regulation are the other effective factors. Several strategies are required in order to address and combat these barriers, such as governmental support for cultural training, cooperative efforts to encourage health practitioners involved to enhance their cultural and linguistic competence in international scale.

An intervention between a group of OD practitioners and a hospital in Ecuador is described. The leadership was exploring expanding from an OBGYN-focused facility to a comprehensive hospital. The intervention consisted of observations, conversations, a survey, Appreciative Inquiry Interviews, and a World Café. A feedback report was shared with the client. Lessons learned for the client and consultants were identified. From a cross-cultural perspective, the appropriateness of a process consulting approach was found.

Starting with more general issues of healthcare policy and governance in a global perspective and using the lens of national case studies of healthcare reform, this handbook addresses key themes in the debates over changing healthcare policy.

Medical tourism is on the rise; however this healthcare trend raises significant issues related to the safety and appropriateness of care. The purpose of this article is to provide healthcare professionals with a better understanding of the phenomenon of medical tourism. The authors will begin by reviewing the history of medical tourism, noting specific medical tourism destinations, and presenting reasons for this increase in medical tourism. Next they will discuss quality and safety issues associated with medical tourism, provide criteria to assess quality of care in other countries, and address ethical and legal consideration inherent in medical tourism. They will conclude with a consideration of the nursing role in medical tourism.