The Spanish health care system: lessons for newly industrialized countries.
This article summarizes the organization, financing, and delivery of health care services in Spain, and discusses the elements that made it possible to maintain high levels of health among the population, while spending comparatively fewer resources on the health care system than most industrialized countries. The case of Spain is of particular interest for newly industrialized countries, because of the fast evolution that it has undergone in recent years. Considered, by United Nations' economic standards, a developing country until 1964, Spain became in a few years the fastest growing economy in the world after Japan. By the early 1970s the infant mortality rate was already lower than in Britain or the United States.
Rodríguez
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Department of Policy Analysis and Management, Cornell University, Ithaca, USA. er23@Cornell.edu
Gallo de Puelles
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Jovell
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AJ
D003695:Delivery of Health Care / Q000191:economics / Q000458:organization & administration*; D019049:Developed Countries; D017598:Efficiency, Organizational; D005380:Financing, Government; D014943:Global Health; D015276:Health Care Rationing; D005102:Health Expenditures; D006305:Health Status Indicators; D006280:Health Workforce; D006779:Hospitals, Public / Q000458:organization & administration; D009313:National Health Programs / Q000191:economics / Q000458:organization & administration; D011320:Primary Health Care / Q000458:organization & administration; D011635:Public Health Administration; D012935:Social Justice; D013030:Spain / Q000453:epidemiology