This book combines a comprehensive overview of the Brazilian hospital sector with in-depth analyses of the key elements of interest in promoting and ensuring excellence in hospital performance. It does so in an accessible manner and within the organizational and financial context of Brazil....

Since the late 1970s the WHO and other international agencies have placed much emphasis on strategies of community organization in order to improve preventive health services and facilities in rural areas. Many countries have recently set out to reform their rural health systems by means of a...

Measuring costs in public hospitals in developing countries is hampered by the lack of an appropriate costing system, or of any systematic cost accounting. Invoices for goods and services, prices for inputs, and patient records are generally absent. As a result, cost measures have historically...

There is building evidence in India that the delivery of health services suffers from an actual shortfall in trained health professionals, but also from unsatisfactory results of existing service providers working in the public and private sectors. This study focusses on the public sector and...