Dr Jose Carlos de Souza Abrahao President of the IHF

Provide a Health service that meets the needs of the population is a common concern of all countries, governments, managers, institutions and Health professionals. In the search for increased quality care, increase - which has become a fundamental requirement for success - access, costs and preparation of the professionals have also drawn the attention of players from all over the world.

After the world economical crisis, which, according to economists and financial analysts, is believed to be over, the health sector has also found ways of reducing wastes without sacrificing quality. A French author says that "Health is priceless, but medicine has costs". This is a true assumption and it is therefore necessary to adopt new management strategies, such as illness prevention and the transformation of hospital installations according to environmentalist tendencies - green hospitals, for example - taking institutions forward to a healthy economy, for both patients and establishments, providing sustainability to services and health.

We can observe the need to undertake work specifically related to illness prevention, with regards in particular to the male population. In Brazil, for example, the Ministry of Health has just launched a national awareness health campaign for men, the aim of which is to persuade men to care more for themselves, to seek healthier life habits and undergo regular medical examinations so as to eliminate potential for disease outbreak, or aggravate existing conditions. The task of convincing the population that health service authorities alone are not responsible for matters of health, can be difficult and produces medium and long term outcomes. The solution should lie in raising the level of health consciousness as well as introduction of other initiatives.

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