International Healthcare Management: Towards Efficiency, Effectiveness and Equity of Healthcare Systems in Low- And Middle-Income Countries

Most of the world’s population lives in countries with very limited resources, resulting in severe shortages of healthcare resources and poor health outcomes. They suffer from different diseases, seek care from different providers, and face barriers that are unfamiliar to people in high-income countries. Yet textbooks
on health economics or healthcare management grossly neglect the realities of healthcare for the world’s majority. This book provides a comprehensive overview of international healthcare management, with a strong focus on low- and lowermiddle-income countries.

Every resource that is wasted cannot be used to save lives. Therefore, efficiency as the proprium of economics is an ethical imperative, particularly in resource-poor countries, and calls for international healthcare management as the study of improving the health of populations by increasing the efficiency of the healthcare
system. This book therefore begins with a broad discussion of concepts and systems of international healthcare, economics, and management. This is followed by a detailed analysis of healthcare supply and demand, which requires a comprehensive approach that goes far beyond traditional health economics or healthcare management to include many aspects of epidemiology, public health, geography, ethnology,
and other sciences. Finally, the book analyses current reforms of healthcare systems, with a focus on healthcare financing reforms.

Based on this in-depth analysis, the book aims to equip the reader with a set of tools to understand, evaluate, design, and change current healthcare systems – a skill that is highly relevant to the lives of billions of people in all regions of the world. The underlying conviction and ultimate goal is always: Efficiency saves lives.

Prof. Dr. Steffen Fleßa is Head of the Department of Healthcare Management at the University of Greifswald, Germany. After studying business administration with a focus on healthcare management, he spent five years working in Tanzania. He then worked as a research assistant in the Department of Health Economics at the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg. Further steps in his career included a professorship in nursing administration (Protestant University of Applied Sciences Nuremberg), a professorship in international health economics (Medical Faculty, University of Heidelberg) and a full professorship in healthcare management at the University of Greifswald. He was Dean of Studies, Vice-Dean of the Faculty of Law and Economics and Vice-Rector of the University.

His main research interests are in the field of healthcare management in peripheral regions and in low- and middle-income countries. He is inspired by the belief that efficiency frees up resources to improve quality of life, reduce mortality and fight for equity. He has research and work experience in Tanzania, Kenya, Burkina Faso, Venezuela, Vietnam, Cambodia, Nepal, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and Indonesia