The present article studies an institution that has been widely adopted by Brazilian health districts in recent years. It consists of a new organizational structure in which neighboring districts form a partnership to supply specialized health care services that otherwise would be difficult to...

Brazil's Unified Health System [Sistema Único de Saúde (SUS)] accounts for most inpatient care in Brazil. Based on data from the two largest governmental health care surveys for 1997, 1998 and 1999 this work describes some aspects of the Brazilian hospital system. We focus our analysis on four...