On May 4 and 5, 2000, health care leaders, professionals, and academics convened at the Bechtel Conference Center at Stanford University for the Health Care Conference 2000. Sponsored by the Comparative Health Care Policy Research Project at the Asia/Pacific Research Center (Shorenstein APARC), in cooperation with the Center for Health Policy (CHP), the conference was held for the purpose of discussing health care policies and issues facing nations today. With the pressures of rising costs, aging populations in industrialized countries, and rapid technological advancements, the need for an accessible, affordable, and effective health care system is urgent and greater than ever. The first conference of its kind at Shorenstein APARC, the Health Care Conference 2000 established a forum for candid discussion about the past, present, and future of health care. Over sixty participants attended the conference. The panel consisted of speakers from governmental institutions, for-profit and nonprofit organizations, universities, and research institutes. The first day of the conference featured a discussion on the evolution of the health care market in the United States, while the second day focused on the effects of market forces overseas, specifically in England, Japan, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Scotland, and Singapore. The 1990s marked an era of major health care reform. For many nations with socialized health care systems, it was a decade to explore alternative systems and to move toward privatization. The implications of such changes were discussed in detail at the conference. The Health Care Conference 2000 was a successful and informative meeting, which opened the doors for future discussions on issues concerning health care around the world. These proceedings present, in edited form, the remarks of all primary conference speakers. Please contact Shorenstein APARC if you have any questions about the conference, or about the Center's work in general.

Hysterectomy is the most common non-pregnancy-related major surgery performed on women in the United States. Close to 600,000 women in the United States undergo the procedure each year, with annual costs exceeding $5 billion. By age 60, more than one-third of women in the United States have had a hysterectomy.

Many believe that the high U.S. hysterectomy rate is a result of an expansion of the accepted indications for hysterectomy. More reasons are listed for removal of the uterus than for any other organ, with indications ranging from life-threatening cancer of the genital tract to menstrual pain. In the United States, hysterectomy is widely accepted by medical professionals and by the public as an appropriate treatment for uterine cancer and for various common non-cancerous uterine conditions that produce disabling levels of pain, discomfort, uterine bleeding, emotional distress, and related symptoms.

With so many possible indications for hysterectomy, the decision as to when to perform the procedure may be a great contributing factor in the different rates of hysterectomy between countries. This study poses the question, "Does individual physician decision-making affect hysterectomy rates in different countries?"