The Directorate of Health
|
|
The Directorate of Health is a government agency headed by the Medical Director of Health. Its five divisions are responsible for administration, public health and clinical quality, infectious disease control, health statistics, and finance. See Organisational chart.
The current Medical Director of Health is Matthías Halldórsso, M.D., D.P.H., D.Sc. The Directorate of Health was established in 1760 and the present Medical Director is the 16th holder of the post.
Main functions of the Directorate of Health
According to the Medical Director of Health Act, No. 47/2007, which entered into force on 1 September 2007, the functions of the Medical Director of Health are defined as follows:
- To advise the Minister of Health and other Government bodies, health professionals and the public on matters concerning health and health care services.
- To inspect the health care services and monitor health care workers.
- To monitor prescription medicines and promote their rational use.
- To collect and process data on health and health care services.
- To monitor the health of the nation.
- To promote quality improvement in the health care services.
- To handle complaints from health care users concerning the health care services.
- To ensure that the education of health professionals is in accordance with the requirements of the health care services at any given time.
- To promote research in the field of health care services.
According to Act no. 19/1997 on Health Security and Communicable Diseases the Chief Epidemiologist at the Directorate of Health is responsible for health security and general and public measures against communicable diseases and other threats to health. Other principal responsibilities of the Chief Epidemiologist are as follows
- To organise and co-ordinate communicable disease control and prevention and immunisations throughout the country, e.g. by publishing guidelines on how epidemics should be handled.
- To maintain a register of communicable diseases in order to monitor the spread of communicable diseases through the collection of detaild diagnostic data from laboratories, hospitals and physicians.
- To keep a register of human use of antimicrobial drugs which may cause resistance to those drugs.
- To promulgate information on the spread of communicable diseases, within Iceland and abroad, to physicians and other health workers.
- To provide advice to physicians and others on communicable disease control.
- To supervise communicable disease prevention, e.g. by means of information and education.
Information in English on this web
On the menu to the left you can access web pages containing general information on the Directorate of Health, its organisation and staff, on Icelandic health statistics, a few publications and articles on the Icelandic health care system, as well as statutes and regulations of interest available in English.
Last updated 1 March 2010