Health

A health system is an organization of people, institutions and resources that provides health care services to meet the health needs of target populations. There is a great variety of healthcare systems in the world, with as many histories and organizational structures as there are nations. Implicitly, nations must design and develop health systems based on their needs and resources, although the common elements of almost all health systems are primary health care and public health measures. In some countries, health system planning is distributed among market participants. In others, there is a concerted effort between governments, unions, charities, religious organizations, or other coordinated bodies to provide planned, targeted health services to the populations they serve. However, health care planning has been described as often evolutionary rather than revolutionary. Like other social institutional structures, health systems likely reflect the history, culture, and economy of the states in which they develop. These peculiarities hinder and complicate international comparisons and preclude any universal standard of healthcare performance.