Call for Papers

Deadlines

• Abstracts submission (1/ 2 pages): May 31, 2007
• Abstracts acceptance: June 30, 2007
• Accepted papers submission: September 3, 2007

Scientific Commitee

• Stefania Lorenzini, IRPET: lorenzini@irpet.it
• Cristina Ugolini, University of Bologna: cristina.ugolini@unibo.it
• Mario Del Vecchio, University of Florence and CERGAS–University Bocconi Milan: mario.delvecchio@uni-bocconi.it
• Cesare Cislaghi, Regional Health Care Agency-Tuscany and University of Milan: cesare.cislaghi@arsanita.toscana.it

Organization and Conference Secretariat

• Lucia Dalla Villa: dallavilla@irpet.it
• Grazia Cadeddu: cadeddu@irpet.it

IRPET, Via La Farina, 27, 50132, Florence - Italy
Phone: +39 055 57411 Fax: +39 055 574155

The theme of the Conference – Priorities and Equity in Health Care Policy - may be faced both with theoretical and empirical papers pertaining either to Italian or foreign experiences. Some examples of topics that fit the Conference targets include:

• Basic levels of public health care: definition, consistency, impact on management
• Funding and resource allocation at regional and local level: criteria, methods and effects
• Determinants of health needs: macroeconomic effects and scope for public intervention
• Relevance of ethical and economic values in defining priorities and management choices
• Costs of unappropriate care: analysis and intervention strategies
• Inequalities in health and access conditions, equity in health care delivery and finance
• Policy options for reducing inequalities and promoting equity
• Models, tools and experiences of measurement of equity and quality in health care
• Responsibility of health care management in pursuing equity

A limited number of papers not specifically pertaining to the Conference theme will be admitted for discussion in one ore more free sessions.

Some sessions in English language will be organized. The languages of the conference are English and Italian (with no simultaneous translation).

Abstracts are to be submitted before May 31st 2007 by e-mail to the members of the Scientific Committee and to the Conference Secretariat (e-mail addresses on the front page). Abstracts (not exceeding 2 pages), should mention:

• name(s) of the author(s) and affiliation; corresponding author’s e-mail address, postal address and telephone number;
• topic of the communication (choosing among the above-listed topics) or “free session”;
• preferred presentation form (either oral presentation or poster);
• title of communication;
• objectives;
• methodology;
• main contents;
• main references and specific original contribution of the communication.

Each abstract will be reviewed by the Scientific Committee and acceptance/rejection will be communicated by June 30th 2007.

Contributions will be accepted both as structured papers (5.000-7000 words) for oral presentation or as short communications (posters). Proposals coming from young researchers, chiefly PhDs, will be highly considered along with proposals coming from foreigner researchers.

Authors of original and unpublished papers, in age lower than 35 years (in case of more authors, the average age will be considered) can participate to the 2007 edition of the “AIES Prize for young researchers in Health Economics” (amount 1.500 Euro). Participation must be specified in the abstract.

Accepted papers must be submitted to the Conference Secretariat within September 3rd 2007.

All information on the Conference will be published on AIES website: http://www.aiesweb.it

University of Florence - Faculty of Economics

Deadlines

• Abstracts submission (1/ 2 pages): May 31, 2007
• Abstracts acceptance: June 30, 2007
• Accepted papers submission: September 3, 2007

Scientific Committee

• Stefania Lorenzini, IRPET: lorenzini@irpet.it
• Cristina Ugolini, University of Bologna: cristina.ugolini@unibo.it
• Mario Del Vecchio, University of Florence and CERGAS–University Bocconi Milan: mario.delvecchio@uni-bocconi.it
• Cesare Cislaghi, Regional Health Care Agency-Tuscany and University of Milan: cesare.cislaghi@arsanita.toscana.it

Organization and Conference Secretariat

• Lucia Dalla Villa: dallavilla@irpet.it
• Grazia Cadeddu: cadeddu@irpet.it

IRPET, Via La Farina, 27, 50132, Florence - Italy Phone: +39 055 57411 Fax: +39 055 574155

The theme of the Conference – Priorities and Equity in Health Care Policy - may be faced both with theoretical and empirical papers pertaining either to Italian or foreign experiences. Some examples of topics that fit the Conference targets include:

• Basic levels of public health care: definition, consistency, impact on management
• Funding and resource allocation at regional and local level: criteria, methods and effects
• Determinants of health needs: macroeconomic effects and scope for public intervention
• Relevance of ethical and economic values in defining priorities and management choices
• Costs of unappropriate care: analysis and intervention strategies
• Inequalities in health and access conditions, equity in health care delivery and finance
• Policy options for reducing inequalities and promoting equity
• Models, tools and experiences of measurement of equity and quality in health care
• Responsibility of health care management in pursuing equity

A limited number of papers not specifically pertaining to the Conference theme will be admitted for discussion in one or more free sessions.

Some sessions in English language will be organized. The languages of the conference are English and Italian (with no simultaneous translation).

Abstracts are to be submitted before May 31st 2007 by e-mail to the members of the Scientific Committee and to the Conference Secretariat (e-mail addresses on the front page). Abstracts (not exceeding 2 pages), should mention:

• name(s) of the author(s) and affiliation; corresponding author’s e-mail address, postal address and telephone number;
• topic of the communication (choosing among the above-listed topics) or “free session”;
• preferred presentation form (either oral presentation or poster);
• title of communication;
• objectives;
• methodology;
• main contents;
• main references and specific original contribution of the communication.

Each abstract will be reviewed by the Scientific Committee and acceptance/rejection will be communicated by June 30th 2007.

Contributions will be accepted both as structured papers (5.000-7000 words) for oral presentation or as short communications (posters). Proposals coming from young researchers, chiefly PhDs, will be highly considered along with proposals coming from foreigner researchers.

Authors of original and unpublished papers, in age lower than 35 years (in case of more authors, the average age will be considered) can participate to the 2007 edition of the “AIES Prize for young researchers in Health Economics” (amount 1.500 Euro). Participation must be specified in the abstract.

Accepted papers must be submitted to the Conference Secretariat within September 3rd 2007.

All information on the Conference will be published on AIES website: http://www.aiesweb.it/

This year’s meeting will focus on:

• Exploring the science of decisions
• Consumer-driven, individualized health care

Keynote Address: Malcolm Gladwell, staff writer with The New Yorker and author of the bestselling books “Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking” and “The Tipping Point: How Little Things Make a Big Difference”, will speak about topics related to making decisions in his talk: “Lessons from the Outside”.

Call for Short Courses: SMDM is now accepting proposals for Short Courses for the 2007 Annual Meeting. Submission form is available at http://www.smdm.org/. The deadline for submission of these proposals is March 5, 2007

Call for Nominations for the 2007 SMDM Awards: Program is designed to recognize distinguished service to SMDM and/or the medical decision making field. Visit http://www.smdm.org/ for detailed descriptions of awards, past recipients, and eligibility requirements. Deadline for award nominations: April 1, 2007

Call for Abstracts: Submit your original work for presentation at the 2007 Annual Meeting in Oral and Poster format. Electronic submission site and detailed instructions will be available starting March 2 at http://www.smdm.org/. Deadline for abstract submission: June 8, 2007

Mark Your Calendar

• February 1, 2007 - Hotel Reservation Opens
• March 2, 2007 - Abstract Submission Site Opens
• March 5, 2007 - Call for Short Courses Due
• April 1, 2007 - Call for Awards Nominations Due
• June 8, 2007 - Abstract Submission Deadline
• June 13, 2007 - Meeting Registration Opens
• October 20-24, 2007 - 2007 SMDM Annual Meeting

Sponsored by the RTI-UNC Center of Excellence in Health Promotion Economics, the Cecil G. Sheps Center for Health Services Research, Novartis, and Sawtooth Software.

This conference is intended for researchers using conjoint analysis or other stated choice methods who wish to share their research findings and gain additional methodological expertise in the application of these methods in health-related research, including the fields of health services research, health economics, or public health. Featured speakers include Joel Huber, Peter Zweifel, Paul Kind, Joffre Swait, and Reed Johnson.

The abstract submissions deadline has been extended to June 29.

http://www.fridaycenter.unc.edu/pdep/conjoint/

The 29th Australian Conference of Health Economists, organised by the Australian Health Economics Society (AHES), will be held in Brisbane on Thursday 27th and Friday 28th September, 2007.

Abstracts for papers are invited on any topics relating to health economics (presentations will be 20 minutes), and proposals are invited for organised sessions (lasting 1.5 hours). Session organisers will have some discretion on the organisation of their session, but one suggestion would be to combine three speakers with an overall discussant. Note that an individual is only allowed to present one paper at the conference, either in a contributed or an organised session.

Abstracts and session proposals should be e-mailed in pdf format to Michael Shields (ahes2007@econ.unimelb.edu.au) no later than Monday 2nd July 2007. Abstracts and session proposals received after the deadline will not be considered. Authors/Session Organisers will be notified of decisions regarding acceptance by Friday 27th July 2006.

A full copy of the paper (7,000 words maximum) is required by the 19th September 2007 and papers will be placed on the AHES website one week prior to the conference.

Keynote Speakers

• Professor Jim Butler, Australian National University
• Professor Ali McGuire, London School of Economics
• Professor Wynand van de Ven, Erasmus University

The conference will be held in Brisbane at the Customs House (http://www.customshouse.com.au/)

The local organiser is Luke Connelly (University of Queensland; e-mail: l.connelly@uq.edu.au).

Further conference details will be made available at: http://www.ahes.org.au/.

Travel Scholarships: The Australian Health Economics Society will finance up to two Travel Scholarships to assist junior researchers in the Asia-Pacific region to attend the 2007 Conference and present a paper. AHES will refund the travel and conference expenses up to a maximum of A$1,500 per scholarship. Anyone wishing to be considered for these scholarships must have their complete conference paper, together with a supporting letter from their PhD supervisor or Head of Department, submitted by Monday 2nd July 2007 to Michael Shields (ahes2007@econ.unimelb.edu.au).

Venue: Langham Hotel

There are always new ideas around about what will make health services more effective, efficient, and equitable but how many are backed by evidence or have been shown to work as well as their protagonists would have us believe? This conference will provide a perfect end-of-year opportunity for researchers, policymakers, managers, and practitioners from New Zealand, Australia and other countries to get together and consider the extent to which past innovations have lived up to expectations and to examine whether ideas now being touted as solutions for health services are supported by evidence.

For more information please visit: http://www.healthservicesconference.com.au/

More details about Abstract Submission

Chaired by: Frederic M. Scherer (John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, US) & M.N. Graham Dukes (University of Oslo, NO)

Biomedical innovation is likely to be the most important source of future gains in quality of life and longevity worldwide and represents the socially most valuable major investment opportunity at the beginning of the 21st century. The process of globalization has enhanced that opportunity by extending the scale at which economies of scale in the generation and diffusion of new medical knowledge and technology can be exploited. To do so more efficiently will require the reorganization of a wide variety of activities, institutions and regulations that determine how well the private incentives are aligned with the global priorities in maximizing human welfare. Particular emphasis will have to be placed on novel knowledge management systems that allow the social benefits and risks of new therapies to be predicted with greater accuracy and earlier in the development process of biomedical technologies.

The conference will assemble leading scholars from the most dynamic and most promising fields of biomedicine as well as health economists and other social scientists who can help with new insights from their own research to identify efficient research and investment strategies for specific fields and contribute to the design of knowledge management systems in biomedical innovation. In this way, the conference will provide a unique forum to develop and discuss new ideas about funding, about the design of intellectual property rights and other incentive mechanisms and about diffusion policies, both with regard to research findings in general and with regard to particular new technologies that are ready for practical application. Specific fields to be represented may include nanomedicine, systems biology, functional genomics, pharmacogenetics, cancer research, organ transplantation, infectiology, and immunology.

In each of these fields, the conference will consider technological opportunities and current innovation barriers in order to identify priorities for further research investments and policy action. To determine research priorities and the optimal amount of funding, the conference will discuss new developments in economic methods, such as cost-benefit and cost-effectiveness analysis, as well as strategies to mobilize the required funds at the national and at the global level. The distribution of the financial burden across social groups within and between countries as well as the role of health insurance schemes, government taxes and other mechanisms in raising the funds will be considered.

A second set of issues for the conference arises from the role of intellectual property rights and other incentive mechanisms in the development of specific fields; patents, the strongest form of intellectual property rights, are known to have serious shortcomings and may not even be the second-best solution in some fields of biomedical innovation, nor should they be uncritically viewed as a panacea to the diffusion problem. The conference will discuss how new strategies to set incentives for innovation and diffusion, such as the academic model of “open source,” can play a greater role in biomedical research and development, especially in view of the need to improve the flow of knowledge between universities and private industry.

A third set of issues arises from the diffusion problem, broadly defined as spanning the whole value-chain from the inventor to the consumer of health care services that incorporate biomedical innovations. Diffusion in this broad sense is bound to be affected by a variety of critical policy choices, such as in the design of regulations for clinical trials, in the definition of information and efficacy requirements for biomedical product approvals, and in the pricing and reimbursement decisions of social health insurance and national health systems. Our conference will provide the forum to discuss how these choices and other organizational issues in biomedical innovation can and should be resolved within countries and at the international level — from a European and from a global perspective.

Sessions will focus on:

• Demand and Supply in the Global Market for Biomedical Innovation
• The Role of Government Funding and Private Insurance
• Intellectual Property Rights and International Trade
• The Social Returns to Biomedical Research
• The Fragile State of Europe’s Biomedical Industry
• Health Care Institutions, Investment Incentives, and the Diffusion of Innovation

Detailed scientific programme (including list of invited speakers) and application form are available from www.esf.org/conferences/07247.

Closing date for application & abstract submission: 20 July 2007.

Some grants available for young researchers to cover the conference fee and possibly part of the travel costs. Grant requests should be made by ticking appropriate field(s) in the paragraph “Grant application” of the application form.

Contact: Ms. Jean Kelly (jkelly@esf.org).

Sponsored by Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ)

Health Services Research (HSR) is pleased to announce a new feature whereby excellent and ground-breaking health services research will be gathered around an important ‘theme’ and published in a theme issue of the journal. The first theme chosen to introduce this feature is “Improving Efficiency and Value in Health Care,” in which we seek to publish research that will help improve the value and efficiency of the American Healthcare System. This Theme Issue is sponsored by Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), which will assist HSR in publicizing and disseminating the findings of the selected studies.

This theme is particularly fitting to initiate this new feature because it presents a conundrum for researchers and policy makers alike. HSR aims to attract the best research on this theme in time to contribute to the national debate and collective interest about health care that attends election years. We all recognize that high and rising healthcare costs - especially when accompanied by gaps in quality, safety, equity, and access – are unsustainable. Federal and state policy makers, along with private payers and systems leaders, are seeking new ways to reduce waste, increase efficiency of healthcare delivery, and allocate resources in order to improve value in health care. Consumers also seek guidance about how to maximize the value of their own health care dollar, particularly since some payer innovations have increased consumers’ financial exposure. HSR is interested in publishing the best research that addresses these critical issues.

We are soliciting the following types of submissions:

• Research Papers presenting the results of original research that can inform efforts to improve efficiency and value. Possible areas of focus include increasing efficiency at the provider or system level (e.g., through process improvements, substitution of more cost-effective technologies, benefit plan redesign, or improved incentives or organizational arrangements), and improving the functioning of health care markets (for example through increased competition or greater price and quality transparency).

• Research Methods Papers reporting methodological advances that improve the reliability and utility of research on efficiency and value for public and private policy-makers, payers, and consumers.

• Evaluations or Policy Analyses using rigorous methods to evaluate the results of pilot programs, demonstrations, or other large-scale initiatives (e.g., public reporting, provider or consumer incentives, regional or national voluntary ‘campaigns’, etc.) designed to improve efficiency and value.

The deadline for initial submission of manuscripts is August 21st, 2007. Criteria for selection of manuscripts include: (1) quality, rigor, and originality; (2) significance and usefulness for improving efficiency and value; and (3) clarity of writing and presentation. For this theme issue, HSR will welcome research using AHRQ datasets such as the Medical Expenditure Panel Survey (MEPS) and the Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project (HCUP). However, manuscripts that use other data and manuscripts reporting qualitative research are also welcome and encouraged.

Manuscripts submitted for the Theme Issue will undergo the same HSR peer review process as all regular manuscripts and will be evaluated using HSR’s usual high standards for publication. Manuscripts that are accepted at HSR typically undergo several cycles of revisions. However, due to the timeline for publishing the Theme Issue, HSR will monitor their progress through review cycles and authors should expect to be especially timely in returning revisions for these manuscripts. All manuscripts must follow the “Instructions for Authors”.

As is usual for all regular manuscripts accepted at HSR, all accepted articles will first be published electronically using HSR’s OnlineEarly publication. Articles published through OnlineEarly are fully published and may be cited. At this stage, accepted articles will undergo an additional selection process and approximately 8 to 10 articles will be selected for the Theme Issue, based on the most original and significant work addressing the theme. Accepted manuscripts that are not selected for the Theme Issue will be automatically scheduled for print publication in a regular issue and their place in the queue will be determined solely on date of acceptance, as for regular manuscripts.

The anticipated publication date in print for the Theme Issue is October 2008.

Key dates for authors:

• August 21, 2007: Initial submission of manuscripts for the Theme Issue.
• June 10, 2008: Notification of assignment of accepted manuscripts to the Theme Issue or Regular Issue.
• October 2008: Print Publication Date for Theme Issue.

Note: For individual manuscripts, electronic publication in OnlineEarly will occur within 2 months of their initial acceptance at HSR. Manuscripts not selected for the Theme Issue will be put in the same queue for print publication as all other regular manuscripts, based on their acceptance date.