Planning and Managing Health Systems

Health systems are complex organizations. They are often the largest single employer in a country, with expenditures of public and private money of 4–17 percent of gross domestic product. Overall and individual facility management requires mission statements, objectives, targets, budgets, activities planning, human interaction, services delivery, and quality assurance. Health organization involves a vast complex of stakeholders and participants, suppliers and purchasers, regulators and direct providers, and individual patients, and their decision-making. These include pyramidal and network organizations and ethical decision-making based on public interest, resource allocations, priority selection, and assurance of certain codes of law and ethical conduct. This chapter discusses how complex organizations work, with potential for application in health, and the motivations of workers and of the population being served. Organization theory helps in devising methods to integrate relevant factors to become more effective in defining and achieving goals and missions.