- Beyond proximity in emergency department choice: A commentary on Taiwo et al. [Letter]Health Policy. 2026 Oct 22; 175:105811. [Online ahead of print]HP
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- An ensemble clustering typology of long-term care policies: evidence from 30 OECD countries. [Journal Article]Health Policy. 2026 Oct 09; 175:105795. [Online ahead of print]HP
- CONCLUSIONS: The typology offers a transparent and reproducible benchmark for cross-country comparison and a tool for evidence-based policy learning. By identifying countries that converge on outcomes despite divergent institutional characteristics, it highlights peer comparators relevant to LTC reform under demographic and fiscal pressure.
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- Well-being and healthcare work over the pandemic. [Journal Article]Health Policy. 2026 Oct 17; 175:105804. [Online ahead of print]HP
- CONCLUSIONS: As pandemic death rates and lockdown stringency mostly moved hand-in-hand, the higher life satisfaction of healthcare workers persisted throughout and after the pandemic possibly reflecting the meaningful nature of their jobs. At the same time, the negative impact of pandemic severity on workers' well-being is especially pronounced among healthcare workers, highlighting the importance of supporting their well-being during public health crises to sustain healthcare system performance.
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- Operationalising value-based payment: a decision-support framework for health system reform. [Journal Article]Health Policy. 2026 Oct 11; 175:105797. [Online ahead of print]HP
- CONCLUSIONS: The framework offers a structured roadmap for designing VBP reforms that enhance productivity and financial sustainability without compromising care quality or equity. It supports policymakers in sequencing reforms, aligning incentives, and ensuring readiness for value-based transformation, directly contributing to policy debates on improving health system productivity.
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- How do countries design and govern staffing levels? A comparative analysis of European approaches. [Journal Article]Health Policy. 2026 Oct 17; 175:105803. [Online ahead of print]HP
- CONCLUSIONS: There is no universally applicable staffing model. Effective staffing policy requires context-sensitive design, clear governance and stronger integration with wider health workforce and health system policies. Comparative monitoring can support policy learning without imposing uniform staffing benchmarks across Europe.
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- Monitoring health systems in small island settings. [Letter]Health Policy. 2026 Oct 13; 175:105800. [Online ahead of print]HP
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- Health systems' responses to climate change: an umbrella review of systematic reviews. [Review]Health Policy. 2026 Oct 17; 175:105805. [Online ahead of print]HP
- CONCLUSIONS: Existing evidence provides practical guidance on effective climate mitigation actions. The limited number of systematic reviews on climate adaptation highlights a gap in the evidence base. Translating mitigation evidence into clinical guidelines and policies and strengthening research on adaptation could support more systematic climate action in health systems.
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- From technologies to capabilities: Sustaining system-level digital transformation in Singapore public healthcare - a NASSS-informed policy analysis. [Journal Article]Health Policy. 2026 Oct 02; 175:105782. [Online ahead of print]HP
- CONCLUSIONS: Applying NASSS beyond disease, or technology-specific, interventions reveals both its strengths and limitations. While the framework provides a useful structure for understanding complexity, it requires adaptation when applied to institutional or system-level programmes. The findings reaffirm that policymakers and system leaders should focus not only on adopting digital tools, but on building the organisational and human capabilities needed to responsibly scale, embed, and sustain digital innovation over time.
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- The health and care workforce in Europe's emerging health security architecture: A comparative assessment of seven EU countries. [Journal Article]Health Policy. 2026 Oct 15; 175:105802. [Online ahead of print]HP
- CONCLUSIONS: The EU needs a coordinated workforce-centred strategy with a sustainable budget that strengthens preparedness, protection, governance capacity, research and implementation to improve resilience under crisis and defence conditions.
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- Should the geriatrician host the party? Person-centred hospital care in ageing societies requires placing geriatrics at the centre of care. [Journal Article]Health Policy. 2026 Oct 09; 175:105791. [Online ahead of print]HP
- As populations age, multimorbidity and frailty increasingly characterize hospital admissions, exposing the limits of traditional disease-specific and organ-centred models of care. Older adults with complex care needs face higher risks of hospitalization, readmission, functional decline, and fragmented care pathways, while hospitals remain insufficiently aligned with these realities. Despite stron…
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- Designing a National Suicide Prevention Strategy (2026-2031): Insights from Malta's Whole-of-Government and Whole-of-Society Model. [Journal Article]Health Policy. 2026 Oct 13; 175:105799. [Online ahead of print]HP
- CONCLUSIONS: This strategy prioritises intersectoral collaboration and measurable targets to enhance prevention efforts. Malta's experience demonstrates how high-growth nations can utilise multisectoral governance to mitigate the mental health impacts of rapid urbanisation and demographic shifts. Long-term efficacy remains contingent upon sustained investment, rigorous evaluation, and adaptive implementation to ensure the strategy's resilience within evolving demographic contexts.
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- Characteristics of medical malpractice claims over 22 years: a population-based analysis in Catalonia, Spain. [Journal Article]Health Policy. 2026 Oct 13; 175:105801. [Online ahead of print]HP
- CONCLUSIONS: In contrast to the general perception, medical malpractice claims in Catalonia have declined or stabilized over the past two decades especially when adjusted for healthcare activity. The Catalan insurance model enables robust population-level data, providing a unique tool for medicolegal risk monitoring. These findings support the use of standardized population-based parameters and argue for international comparison of health management models to inform policy and enhance patient safety.
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- Decomposing health-service volume growth in Türkiye: volume-based physician productivity and physician-density growth in a 12-country OECD comparison. [Journal Article]Health Policy. 2026 Oct 11; 175:105796. [Online ahead of print]HP
- CONCLUSIONS: The timing is consistent with demand-side reform preceding growth in the training pipeline, most volume growth occurring through higher recorded volume per physician. Reforms expected to raise service use should include prospective workforce planning and monitoring of volume relative to capacity.
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- Mandatory reporting of healthcare-associated infections: a global comparative policy analysis using Kingdon's multiple streams framework. [Journal Article]Health Policy. 2026 Oct 08; 175:105794. [Online ahead of print]HP
- CONCLUSIONS: The principal barrier to national HAI surveillance is insufficient alignment of the problem, policy, and political streams rather than a lack of evidence or technical solutions. Strengthening political commitment through legal mandates, sustained investment, governance, and advocacy is essential to institutionalize surveillance systems and strengthen long-term IPC.
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- What health reforms promise and what evaluations measure: A comparative policy analysis of reform evaluation in six predominantly tax-funded high-income countries. [Journal Article]Health Policy. 2026 Sep 30; 175:105780. [Online ahead of print]HP
- CONCLUSIONS: These six systems showed a recurrent gap between reform ambition and evaluation practice. Evaluation could be strengthened by planning at inception, pairing objectives with indicators, improving cross-sector data infrastructure, transparently reporting evaluation resourcing, and strengthening governance for longitudinal learning and accountability. These findings inform evaluation design in comparable tax-funded systems.
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