Leadership and governance involve ensuring strategic policy frameworks exist and are combined with effective oversight, coalition-building, regulation, attention to system-design and accountability.
Health policy refers to key approaches needed to achieve specific health care goals for a society. By outlining priorities, it helps define the expected roles of different groups to coalesce collective action towards the vision and targets.
Health services include all services dealing with the diagnosis and treatment of disease, or the promotion, maintenance and restoration of health. They include personal and non-personal health services.
A good health system delivers quality services to all people, when and where they need them. It consists of all organizations, people and actions whose primary intent is to promote, restore or maintain health.
Hospitals play a vital role in the health care system. With organized medical, nursing and other professional staff, they deliver diagnostic, treatment, convalescent and terminal care services 24 hours per day, 7 days per week.
Health legislation encompasses the laws, regulations and other similar legislative instruments that deal with all aspects of health protection, disease prevention, and delivery of health care.
Management of health requires similar actions across many different settings. The work of health managers is to run health facilities and services to maximize access and quality for the population with minimal wastage of resources.
The ultimate goal of primary health care is better health for all. It is essential health care based on sound and socially acceptable methods made universally accessible to individuals and families in the community and country.
Quality and patient safety are essential attributes of good health services. Improvement of these are fundamental to progress and to meeting the expectations of both populations and health care workers.
