asia healthspace

Today, I stumbled upon a new, very interesting blog concept started by Adam Marcus and Ivan Oransky, addressing scientific journalism and its accuracy: Retraction Watch. In the pursuit of accountability you have to love the web enabling blogs and organizations like this, Wikileaks, and other independent forms of investigative journalism and expression. Old school media [...]

Those who know me well, know that I have a passion for economics and finance and without fail, I compliantly take my daily dose (nice medical metaphor!) of financial news and bloggers. One of the financial blogs I follow and mostly respect, is called “Naked Capitalism” which is founded and managed by Yves Smith. Well [...]

Printed with permission: Source: EIU Healthcare Report February 2010 Despite the relatively low level of spending on healthcare in Singapore, the island state’s health indicators are good Spending on healthcare in Singapore is relatively low as a percentage of GDP: at an estimated 4.1% in 2009, it is below the average of around 5.3% of [...]

A seemingly ubiquitous item on the reform agenda of most developed and now developing nations is “healthcare reform”. Whether we talk about the U.S. private/hybrid health care system or universal healthcare systems such as Canada’s, U.K.’s, Australia’s, and France’s, it appears the grass is much greener on the other side though as far as I [...]

Printed with permission: Source: EIU Healthcare Report October 2009 Despite relatively low healthcare spending, Hong Kong rates well in comparisons of basic health indicators, such as life expectancy. Spending on healthcare (which tends to be resistant to economic downturns) ticked up to an estimated 6.2% of GDP in 2009, based on WHO definitions. This is [...]

Printed with permission. Source: EIU Healthcare Report November 2009 The standard of healthcare in Thailand is relatively high, but there are considerable regional disparities, as well as differences between public and private provision. As a percentage of GDP, healthcare spending in Thailand has remained at around 3.3% in recent years, below the estimated level in [...]

Printed with permission. Source EIU Healthcare Report December 2009 Despite the low ratio of health spending to GDP, Malaysia’s public healthcare system is lauded as an Asian success story The value of Malaysia’s healthcare industry is estimated at around US$8.4bn in 2009. Total expenditure on healthcare is estimated at the equivalent of 4.3% of GDP [...]

Kudos to Dr. Rich of The Covert Rationing Blog for trying to further debate in the topic of physician-industry relationships and conflicts of interests. I have also spoke to this effect in my article “What conflicts of interest? Trust me – I’m a doctor.” addressing what I think is a urgent need for Asian physicians [...]

Printed with permission. Source: EIU Healthcare Report September 2009 The government must reconcile rising demand for healthcare with a desire for fiscal consolidation Healthcare spending per head in the Philippines is low, at only US$68 (at market exchange rates) in 2009, above the levels of US$60 in Indonesia and US$39 in Vietnam, but below those [...]

The role of medical imaging in modern healthcare is without doubt, a vital one as almost every clinical discipline utilizes it to a certain aspect. Economic progress and the rapid proliferation of lifestyle diseases such as diabetes and hypertension due to poor diet and lack of exercise has resulted in the increasing reliance on medical [...]