The treatment and the solution of health economic problems by using management concepts is a permanent challenge; the question of control­ ling the costs or the efficiency of the supply of medical services is concerned. The articles in this book hope to make a concrete contri­ bution to this subject by reporting on the latest research the authors have made in this area. The medical services involved can either be part of the general provi­ sion of medical care and treatment to the population or can be provided by hospitals which are complex systems of public health care. The divi­ sion of the contents of this book reflects this distinction. The four articles in Part A are concerned with problems of general health care. Part B is dedicated to particular problems relating to hospital planning and contains five articles. In Part A the first article by Heidenberger deals with 'Optimal Resource Allocation in Horizontally and Vertically Disaggregated Health Programs' Using corresponding model formulations and linear programming the pro­ blem is solved of how a fixed budget should be distributed among the measures of a social health program so that the control of an illness is as effective as possible. In the case in question the illness to be controlled is high blood pressure. The possibilities for using this type of approach in health programs to combat other illnesses are ob­ vious.