A Systems Approach to Health Care

Kiselev, A. (1975). A Systems Approach to Health Care. IIASA Research Memorandum. IIASA, Laxenburg, Austria: RM-75-031

Preview

Text RM-75-031.pdf Download (616kB) | Preview

Abstract

Health care in modern society is a complex public functional system, closely interrelated with all spheres of social life. The general goals of health care are formulated in the fifth long-range WHO program, which states:

"...Public health services face three major problems: carrying on medical research and accumulating medical and biological knowledge as the only feasible basis for all complex measures aimed at protection and improvement of man's health; taking comprehensive individual and public measures on diseases, prevention and environment normalization; providing all population with the opportunities of modern diagnostics in case of the emergence of diseases, appropriate treatment of these diseases and restoration of people's working abilities...."

The above formulation of health care general objectives is a starting point for the present paper. To carry out these objectives, it is not yet possible to move on to the formalization of processes and states within a specific complex dynamic health care system and its separate subsystems. We wish to formulate a systems approach, and therefore solutions to health care problems require the elaboration of an overall strategy one could follow when formally describing and investigating a specific health care system. Without an overall strategy, such things as comparative studies of different health care systems are impractical.

In this paper the strategy of a systems approach to health care has been constructed.

Actions (login required)

View Item