title: Health surveillance and planning for health care in the Netherlands.
abstract: This paper begins by describing the historical background to health surveillance and planning in the Netherlands from their beginnings in the late Middle Ages. It goes on to discuss the present organization of health care and recent attempts to obtain more reliable and comprehensive information on which to base health care planning. The rudiments of a general health information system already exist and a feasibility study for establishing such a system on a regional basis has been proposed.
mesh_terms: D003140:Communicable Disease Control; D006285:Health Planning; D049672:History, 19th Century; D049673:History, 20th Century; D009426:Netherlands; D011159:Population Surveillance; D011634:Public Health / Q000266:history