A Promising Health Care Reform in Greece

Abstract

The Greek Ministry of Health has decided to reform hospital services, due to high cost and low services offered and a part of health care expenditures is wasted. The Minister of Health, Mr. Andreas Loverdos has enacted a law for the Greek health care system which include 3 major health reforms: the co-management of hospital units, taking either the type of ‘shared Manager’ or ‘shared Board of Directors,’ the transformation of some general hospitals/health centers or specialized hospitals that present low effective/efficiency rates into either primary health care units or day clinics for specific health care problems, and the merging of similar departments/clinics and/or laboratories either in a hospital or among two or more hospitals that are in the neighborhood. From these reforms, it is estimated that more than 150 million Euro will be saved from these reforms during the 4-year period 2012-2015.