The Dutch Healthcare System in International Perspective

In this address, important aspects of the Dutch system of managed competition are discussed from the economic perspective, highlighting both its merits and the major challenges posed by the development of this system. Reasons for government intervention in healthcare markets are provided, and the outline the different types of healthcare systems are sketched. Followed by a description of the Dutch healthcare system and healthcare outcomes in different countries are compared. The inaugural address concludes with some suggestions for improving the Dutch system

Beyond the Clock:Exploring the Causal Relationship between General Practitioner Time Allocation and Hospital Referrals

This paper presents an analysis of an experiment conducted in the Netherlands to evaluate the impact of a new way of working for General Practitioners (GPs) with respect to hospital referrals and healthcare spending. The new way of working gave GPs more time to spend on each patient, and we employed a Bayesian difference-in-differences approach to estimate the effect of this intervention. To assess the impact of the new way of working, we created a control group consisting of regional GP practices that did not implement the new approach and analyzed data on hospital referrals and healthcare spending in both the practice that implemented the new approach (the treatment practice) and the control group, both before and after the intervention. Our analysis shows that the new approach led to a substantial reduction in the total number of hospital referrals. We also observed a decrease in overall healthcare spending on combined GP and hospital care for the treatment practice relative to the control group

Isotachophoresis: the concepts of resolution, load capacity and separation efficiency. II: Experimental evaluation

Resolution, load capacity and separation efficiency in isotachaphoresis are experimentally evaluated and the results are compared with the theoretically expected values. The theoretical and experimental results show good agreement and confirm the reliability of the transient-state model. The importance of the dimensionless separation number and load capacity for the determination and standardization of experimental performance conforms with theory. It is shown that, in view of these two parameters, the pH of the leading electrolyte is the best rationale for optimization, whereas the pH of the sample has only restricted possibilities. Steady-state configurations in which constituents are not migrating in order of decreasing effective mobilities are shown and discussed