The main principles for the management of health organizations

Résumé ou Introduction

It is known that better health leads to faster economic growth which in turn, catalyzed by the equitable distribution of wealth, leads to healthier populations. Given this statement, the introduction of management notions in health care provision can be considered as one of the more relevant health sector innovations of our era.

Management has been discussed, practiced, and written about since the beginning of time. Although health care management as a separate discipline is of more recent origin, it is sustained by solid principles stated long before by famous theorists such as Frederick Taylor, father of scientific management, Henri Fayol - who developed “Fayolism”-, Max Weber and many others. Most of them asserted that health care management, as part of management in general, involves certain functions and activities that must be performed to achieve effectively and efficiently the set goals of the organization.

As there is continuous need to improve the quality of health services, improving the efficiency and effectiveness of health care provision will require well-developed skills among managers. These skills come through clear understanding of basic principles that sustain efficient application of management in health organizations. Lines below, try to describe succinctly main principles of health management as applied in the actual modern context.