National Health Systems of the World: Volume I: Countries

This pioneering work is the first comprehensive account of national health systems throughout the world today. The author analyzes the organization, financing, management, and delivery of health services in 68 countries with widely diverse levels of economic development and political ideology. Topics examined include system planning, manpower development, hospital operations, health insurance, cost containment, prevention programs, quality controls, primary care, regionalization, privatization, and more. The work clarifies the similarities and differences with which nations have responded to the health and medical needs of their people, offering historical backgrounds and explanations of the current dynamics prevailing in each country. It will enable the health problems of any single country to be understood with a fresh perspective provided by the strategies used elsewhere to cope with similar situations. This in-depth study is the product of a uniquely rich research career and represents the author's first-hand experience working in the great majority of the countries described. Volume II, scheduled for publication in 1993, will analyze health system components and issues.