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Date:
November 12, 2002 (Tuesday)
Time: 12:00 noon - 14:00 pm
Venue: Seminar Room 5, LG1, Laboratory Block, Faculty of Medicine
Building, 21 Sassoon Road, Pokfulam
It
is no longer a matter for conjecture that chronic illness will be
a major problem in the financing of health care.
Numerous
reports by the World Bank have provided useful insights on the global
burden of disease, and detailed analyses in different nations have
indicated some of the new drivers of national health expenditures.
In many nations, the inevitability of Health/GDP ratios soaring
above 10% is no longer shocking national treasuries, and there is
even some acceptance that the drug share of total health expenditures
will rise, and that this may be a valid use of scarce resources
if modern drugs cause reductions in hospital use and improve productivity.
Based
on the Institute of Health Economics and Technology Assessment's
recent consultancies in China, Hong Kong and Singapore, Professor
Gross will review one major issue, viz., the ability of Hong Kong
to sustain the current patterns of use of public and private care
with traditional sources of financing if the chronic illness burden
increases with ageing and with functional disability.
The
seminar
- reviews
the current methods of health care financing in Hong Kong;
- assesses
six major imbalances that retard efficiency gains and access to
care outside the hospital walls;
- dentifies
reforms in other nations that have relevance to Hong Kong; and
- dentifies
four new options that policymakers seem likely to contemplate
in the next few years.
Paul
Gross is Director of Health Group Strategies Pty Ltd (Australia,
France and China), of which the Institute of Health Economics and
Technology Assessment is the research and education arm.
Health
Group Strategies Pty Ltd is a consultancy concerned with strategic
planning and development in health care organisations in Australia,
USA, Asia and Europe. Recently, Professor Gross has completed assessments
of new health insurance schemes in both China and Hong Kong, as
well as the likely impact of ageing and chronic illness on the Singaporean
health care financing strategy.
Professor
Gross was a member of the National Health Advisory Committee of
Australia's National Health & Medical Research Council up to
2000, and the NSW Health Council in its review of the NSW hospitals
and health services in 1999/2000. In addition, he is a member of
the Senate of Australian Catholic University and the editorial advisory
board of the Journal of Clinical Outcomes Management. In an earlier
career, he was Professor of administration at the University of
Saskatchewan, Canada.
Press
release - Chinese 
Press release - English
Presentation file 
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