Introduction
Policies about health systems can have
profound impacts on citizens, patients,
health professionals, and managers. For
physicians, for example, the impacts can
include changing their scope of practice (a
governance arrangement), how they are
paid (a financial arrangement), where they
provide care (a delivery arrangement), and
how their practices are supported in
providing the types of care that citizens
and patients value (an implementation
strategy). Contextual factors are extremely
important in shaping decisions about
health systems, and policy makers have
to work through all the pros and cons of
different options before developing new
policies on health systems