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Challenges in health and health care for Australia
Author(s) -
Armstrong Bruce K,
Gillespie James A,
Leeder Stephen R,
Rubin George L,
Russell Lesley M
Publication year - 2007
Publication title -
medical journal of australia
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.904
H-Index - 131
eISSN - 1326-5377
pISSN - 0025-729X
DOI - 10.5694/j.1326-5377.2007.tb01383.x
Subject(s) - health care , business , equity (law) , health policy , population health , workforce , government (linguistics) , public health , health equity , health promotion , hrhis , population , economic growth , medicine , public relations , environmental health , political science , nursing , economics , linguistics , philosophy , law
The next Australian Government will confront major challenges in the funding and delivery of health care. These challenges derive from: Changes in demography and disease patterns as the population ages, and the burden of chronic illness grows; Increasing costs of medical advances and the need to ensure that there are comprehensive, efficient and transparent processes for assessing health technologies; Problems with health workforce supply and distribution; Persistent concerns about the quality and safety of health services; Uncertainty about how best to balance public and private sectors in the provision and funding of health services; Recognition that we must invest more in the health of our children; The role of urban planning in creating healthy and sustainable communities; and Understanding that achieving equity in health, especially for Indigenous Australians, requires more than just providing health care services.The search for effective and lasting solutions will require a consultative approach to deciding the nation's priority health problems and to designing the health system that will best address them; issues of bureaucratic and fiscal responsibility can then follow.