title: Challenges in health and health care for Australia.
abstract: The next Australian Government will confront major challenges in the funding and delivery of health care. These challenges derive from: Changes in demography and disease patterns as the population ages, and the burden of chronic illness grows; Increasing costs of medical advances and the need to ensure that there are comprehensive, efficient and transparent processes for assessing health technologies; Problems with health workforce supply and distribution; Persistent concerns about the quality and safety of health services; Uncertainty about how best to balance public and private sectors in the provision and funding of health services; Recognition that we must invest more in the health of our children; The role of urban planning in creating healthy and sustainable communities; and Understanding that achieving equity in health, especially for Indigenous Australians, requires more than just providing health care services. The search for effective and lasting solutions will require a consultative approach to deciding the nation's priority health problems and to designing the health system that will best address them; issues of bureaucratic and fiscal responsibility can then follow.
authors.affiliation: Sydney Cancer Centre, Sydney, NSW, Australia.
authors.forename: Bruce K
authors.initials: BK
authors.lastname: Armstrong
authors.forename: James A
authors.initials: JA
authors.lastname: Gillespie
authors.forename: Stephen R
authors.initials: SR
authors.lastname: Leeder
authors.forename: George L
authors.initials: GL
authors.lastname: Rubin
authors.forename: Lesley M
authors.initials: LM
authors.lastname: Russell
mesh_terms: D001315:Australia; D002908:Chronic Disease / Q000191:economics; D003710:Demography; D017048:Health Care Costs; D018166:Health Care Reform; D054624:Health Status Disparities; D006280:Health Workforce; D006801:Humans; D007348:Insurance, Health; D019300:Medical Errors / Q000517:prevention & control; D013677:Medical Laboratory Science / Q000191:economics; D009313:National Health Programs; D011057:Politics; D011314:Preventive Health Services; D011785:Quality Assurance, Health Care; D014507:Urbanization