long range health planning

in the past, health planning in iran has been carried out in the context of short-range economic plans. although this mechanism has helped a great deal in the achievement of certain health plans however, the said scheme has been short in meeting the health objectives on a comprehensive basis. most often, the heath programs have lost their values to the priority and cost effectiveness of economic plans. a brief review of heath planning in the past shows that the second development plan has been devoted to the establishment of new hospitals on a scattered pattern. the development of a coordinated hospital and health center system has been accepted and partly implemented during the third plan period. in the fourth plan the whole direction has changed towards the de­velopment of private hospitals on profit making basis, and now the fifth plan calls for the regionalized hospital system. thus, one can say that the past twenty years have been spent to the experimentation of different schemes with­out a real long-range goal. in the past decade the world health organization has ventured in the development of health planning principles, but most of the efforts have been devoted to the short-range planning. the long-range health planning is not only a new look to the prin­ciples of planning, but a thorough examination of the time factor in health planning.