ABSTRACT
This chapter presents a scenarios-based approach to the European health sector. It illustrates a robust and stimulating group-level analytical process to improve understanding of the implications of the complex interaction of key forces within the health sector, rather than to illustrate a single course of action. In most European countries, governments, health service providers and organisations with an interest in health sector reform have engaged in a range of exercises to look at the future of health and health care. In order to ensure that essential areas were covered, the groups were asked to develop their scenarios from specific perspectives – pharmaceuticals and biotechnology; information technology and the Internet; and health sector financing and health services. Political changes, such as conservatism, may make it difficult to reduce disparities in economic development between EU countries and to integrate the former socialist countries of Eastern Europe.
