How to improve health care delivery and manage health care costs are central themes in public policy debate in Canada today. It is not only Canada that faces these challenges however and we need not only look to ourselves for solutions. In AIMS latest commentary series we look at Swedish Health Care in Transition. The author, Johan Hjertqvist, is a senior advisor to the Greater Stockholm Council on health care reform. Mr. Hjertqvist is also director of “Health in transition”, a four-year pilot project whose objective is to describe and analyse the operation of a competitive market within the public system.
In this, his first commentary, Hjertqvist explores the debate over private sector provision of health services in Sweden. He highlights the positive developments in primary care contracting and the continued shift to entrepreneurs over employees in the search for doctors and nurses. Hjertqvist explores the benefits of private sector market driven health care delivery for patients and practitioners alike and concludes that market forces are here to stay.
