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In an ideal world we would have the same rules on devices in each country.  As patients, as we live or travel in different countries, we can be confident that should we fall ill, the devices used to help us are as safe as the ones at home.  As businesses, we would be confident that […]

Yesterday’s report by Thomson Reuters on the real causes of excessive costs in the US healthcare system make interesting reading. Centre stage is over-treatment generated by a litigious culture which encourages patients to sue and, from that, doctors to perform tests and procedures, not because in their clinical judgement the patient needs them but because […]

A chill wind is blowing through Washington D.C. this morning and it is not just the cold front from the North blowing away the warm Autumn sun of yesterday. Yesterday, the Obama health reforms took their first step on a long and perilous road through the legislature when the Senate Finance Committee passed the preliminary […]

The latest results of the Euro Health Consumer Index (www.healthpowerhouse.com) further confirm the superiority of Bismarckian social philosophy over the Beveridge approach, at least as far as the patient is concerned. Bismarck countries, characterised by compulsory third party insurance systems, feature as the most consumer friendly health systems from the perspective of the patient and […]

Watching TV the other night I came across an excellent set of ‘reportages’ into the health sector.

Returning to the daily routine after a long, and hot, summer break is always characterised by mixed feelings. Part wishes the languorous morning routines to carry on whilst other forces bring a refreshed mind optimistic about the challenges ahead. This morning’s bright and early start in Brussels was illuminated by two articles in the Financial […]

The arcane world of credit default swaps may seem a very curious subject to stimulate the mind of a life-long medical technology man. My thoughts turned to these strange and questionable instruments, which appear to be one of the roots of the financial crisis, during a week when they were seldom far from the front […]

Browsing the news pages of the web I came across an article in a journal that I am not familiar with from the USA, the grandly titled U.S. News & World Report. The report headed off on a familiar and now even more fashionable track of squarely identifying our industry as the villains of the […]

Talking about the role of the EU in the developing world EC Director General for Development Stefano Manservisi described the new approach to health development policy on a global level: “From donorship to partnership”. He explained that access to medicine needs to be viewed as not only provision of medicines but rather the ability to […]