Public Health in Ireland

The Health Systems in Transition (HiT) profiles are country-based reports that provide a detailed description of a health system and of reform/ policy initiatives in progress or under development in a specific country. Each profile is produced by country experts in collaboration with the Observatory's research directors, staff. In order to facilitate comparisons between countries, the profiles are based on a template, which is revised periodically. The template provides detailed guidelines/ specific questions, definitions/ examples needed to compile a profile. HiT profiles seek to provide relevant information to support policy-makers/ analysts in the development of health systems in Europe. They are building blocks that can be used:to learn in detail about different approaches to the organization, financing and delivery of health services and the role of the main actors in health systems;to describe the institutional framework, the process, content and implementation of health care reform programmes;to provide a tool for the dissemination of information on health systems and the exchange of experiences of reform strategies between policy-makers and analysts in different countries.