Hospital Infrastructure Development in Serbia: Modernizing the Four University Clinical Centres

The countries of South East Europe have undergone a range of health reforms since the fall of communism/socialism, moving from a highly centralized system that was predominantly provided by the public sector to more decentralized systems with greater involvement of the private sector. These changes were accompanied by the introduction of new mechanisms for financing health services, often involving private out-of-pocket payments from patients, and by attempts to reduce an oversized hospital sector in a challenging economic environment (Mastilica 1998; Markota 1999; Albreht 2002; Rechel 2009a). As elsewhere, hospitals in the region have had to adapt not only to these broader health system changes, but also to other developments, such as demographic and epidemiological transitions, the emergence of new and expensive technologies, and changes in the health market and payment mechanisms for hospital services (Rechel 2006; McKee 2002; Rechel 2009b).