HEALTH NETWORKS. STRUCTURE AND MANAGEMENT. IMPLICATIONS FOR SOCIAL ECONOMY

This article starts from a systematic analysis of specialized literature on the subject of health care services and networks integration, trying to offer relevant explanations to better understand the organization system of services within the network.To begin with, the article brings forward the institutional and spatial dynamics that leads to the network type configurations. Then, there is an analysis of the processes and measures which can serve as planning instruments available to the policies,shaping some principles for the management of networks within the health area.Finally, the article presents some configuration models of the health networks,recorded by the specialized literature and discusses the link between the natural evolution towards these new management organization forms and the new principles of social economy as a systematic evolution of the state`s organization. From the methodology point of view, the article has resulted from searching, selecting,evaluating and summarizing some works focused on the health systems economy and policies within the area of health.