ABSTRACT
Over the past decade, Chile has implemented several significant health reform initiatives, including “Universal Access with Explicit Guarantees” (Acceso Universal con Garantías Explícitas-AUGE), which guarantees opportune, quality, and financially protected treatment for 80 priority health conditions. While these reforms have achieved considerable improvements in access to healthcare, even for the most disadvantaged groups, the impact of the policies is not yet sufficiently felt in the quality and safety of healthcare, particularly in the public system. Several mechanisms have been established to provide quality assurance and safety of care, and an institutional framework is in place for its enforcement at both national and regional levels. Full and successful implementation of the reforms, however, has faced obstacles in terms of the availability of expert human resources, the resolutive capacity of the primary care centers, and the timeliness of attention. It is expected that the administration of the New Majority will address these pressing issues and continue to thoroughly evaluate and improve the healthcare system’s quality and effectiveness for the entire Chilean population.
