The Royal College of Nursing's quest to improve recruitment.

Emeritus Professor Alan Glasper, from the University of Southampton, discusses a recent report by the Royal College of Nursing calling for the Government to change the system of funding for nurse education.

A global perspective: training opportunities in Adolescent Medicine for healthcare professionals.

PURPOSE OF REVIEW: The review briefly describes the current state of adolescent health globally, and highlights current educational and training opportunities in Adolescent Medicine for healthcare providers worldwide. RECENT FINDINGS: Despite a growing body of literature demonstrating a shift toward recognizing Adolescent Medicine as a subspecialty, there are very few countries that offer nationally recognized Adolescent Medicine training programs. In recent years, several countries have begun to offer educational programming, such as noncredentialed short training programs, conferences, and online courses. Challenges, including cultural barriers, financing, and lack of governmental recognition and support, have hindered progress in the development of accredited training programs globally. SUMMARY: It is crucial to support efforts for sustainable training programs, especially within low and middle-income countries where a majority of the world's adolescent population lives. Sharing knowledge of existing curriculums, programs, and systems will increase opportunities globally to build regional capacity, increase access to interdisciplinary services, and to implement health-promoting policies for youth worldwide.

The Medicaid trap.

Even as the economy rebounds, unemployment remains high and tax revenues low. States face enormous deficits, and many could cut Medicaid reimbursements or levy fees on providers to help fund the program, typically among their largest budget items. If and how the federal government will help is unclear. "We're looking at tremendous pressure over the next two years, making institutional players, especially hospitals, very vulnerable," one expert warns.

Funding system incentives and the restructuring of health care.

The 1970s and 1980s were decades of rapid growth in health care services and expenditures in Canada. Numerous government sponsored reports laid our principles for restructured health services delivery. These principles included directions such as community orientation, continuity of care and health promotion. The principles were similar, and so were the results: throughout Canada there has been limited action on these principles.

Reforms are needed to increase public funding and curb demand for private care in Israel's health system.

Historically, the Israeli health care system has been considered a high-performance system, providing universal, affordable, high-quality care to all residents. However, a decline in the ratio of physicians to population that reached a modern low in 2006, an approximate ten-percentage-point decline in the share of publicly financed health care between 1995 and 2009, and legislative mandates that favored private insurance have altered Israel's health care system for the worse. Many Israelis now purchase private health insurance to supplement the state-sponsored universal care coverage, and they end up spending more out of pocket even for services covered by the entitlement. Additionally, many publicly paid physicians moonlight at private facilities to earn more money. In this article I recommend that Israel increase public funding for health care and adopt reforms to address the rising demand for privately funded care and the problem of publicly paid physicians who moonlight at private facilities.

The impact of the economic downturn on healthcare in Spain: consequences and alternatives.

In Spain, the economic downturn has caused big changes in most of the public policies, where healthcare system is the one which is deeply affected too. The objective of the paper is to review some of the recent changes achieved in the system, and to discuss about providing some alternative ideas to the implemented policies. The existing universal coverage previous to the crisis, as acknowledged by the law, has changed last year and the new figure of 'insured person' has been introduced into the system. These persons are now the only ones eligible to receive healthcare under the public coverage. New co-payments have been introduced for drugs, and retired persons must also pay a 10% co-payment (which was 0% before) at the chemist office. Healthcare institutions have also implemented several policies to manage tough budget constraints. Some regions have privatized healthcare management of some hospitals (as Madrid) to control budget and presumably to obtain a higher efficiency. Different initiatives dealing with human resources and external purchases are also presented in this paper to mostly achieve budget control. The majority of the changes have been pure budget cuts and a reorganization of the system and institutions is still needed.

Assessment of admissions policies for veteran corpsmen and medics applying to physician assistant educational programs.

PURPOSE: The purpose of this study was to assess the admission policies, experiences, and attitudes of physician assistant (PA) program directors with regard to recruiting, admitting, and training veteran corpsmen and medics. METHODS: A descriptive survey consisting of 18 questions was distributed to all 154 PA program directors in the United States. RESULTS: One hundred ten (71.4%) program directors participated in the survey. Veterans were admitted into 83.6% of programs in the years 2008-2010, and accounted for an average of 2.6% of all students. A minority of PA programs accepted college credits earned by veterans for their military training (45.3%) or for their off-duty education (28.4%). Few PA programs participated in the Yellow Ribbon Program (16%) or actively recruited veterans (16%). Over half of PA programs (56.7%) would be more likely to give special consideration to the admission of veteran corpsmen and medics if it was easier to equate their military education and experience to the program's admission prerequisites. The most frequently reported benefits for educating veteran corpsmen and medics in PA programs are their health care and life experiences, maturity, and motivation. Barriers for educating veterans include veterans' lack of academic preparedness for graduate education, a lack of time/access for recruiting, and the cost of PA school. CONCLUSION: Most PA program directors cited multiple benefits for educating veteran corpsmen and medics, but veterans face barriers for admission into PA programs. Approaches are discussed for facilitating the transition of corpsmen and medics from the military to careers as PAs.

Emergency medical services in Connecticut.

This article describes emergency medical services (EMS) systems in Connecticut, beginning with a historical perspective. The discussion of statewide oversight of the EMS system includes legislative and regulatory mandates as well as recent external reviews of the system. Medical oversight of EMS care and services is provided by sponsor hospitals rather than individual medical directors. Most of the 169 cities and towns in the State maintain or contract for local EMS, and have traditionally resisted regionalization. This snapshot of the EMS system in Connecticut can serve as a reference for comparison of EMS systems in other jurisdictions.