Abstract

ALVAREZ PEREZ, Adolfo Gerardo et al. The regionalization of the health services as a sanitary reorganization strategy. Rev Cubana Hig Epidemiol [online]. 2008, vol.46, n.1. ISSN 0253-1751.

OBJECTIVE: to update the topic of decentralization and regionalization associated with the performance of the health systems in order to conceptually contribute to the study of the thematic in Cuba and in other Latin American countries. DEVELOPMENT: the non-systematic documentary review was used, and the experience accumulated for more than 4 decades by the Cuban government and the health system as regards organization and improvement of the health services to raise the population's health levels was presented. The bases, principles and lessons from these experiences of decentralization and regionalization of the health services in Cuba, which have become bases for the development of a national study, were exposed. CONCLUSIONS: the regionalization processes favour the capacity to solve problems of the health services, starting from the consequent application of the basic principles of decentralization as a long process that allows to offering adequate levels of attention to all, to improve the quality of services, to increase the satisfaction of the population and to attain optimal levels of cost-benefit relation.

Keywords : Public health; organization of the health services; reform of the health sector; decentralization; regionalization.