page_title: Spanish National Health System
section_title: Specialized care
hierarchical_section_title: Spanish National Health System / Services / Specialized care
caption_attribution_description: English: X-ray of organs during a laprasopic cholecystectomy. The picture shows the liver on top, the biliary tree within the liver, and the cystic duct going from the gall bladder to the common bile duct, which then goes down to duodenum.
context_page_description: The Spanish National Health System is the agglomeration of public healthcare services that has existed in Spain since it was established through and structured by the Ley General de Sanidad of 1986. Management of these services has been progressively transferred to the distinct autonomous communities of Spain, while some continue to be operated by the National Institute of Health Management, part of the Ministry of Health and Social Policy. The activity of these services is harmonized by the Interterritorial Council of the Spanish National Health Service in order to give cohesion to the system and to guarantee the rights of citizens throughout Spain.
  Article 46 of the Ley General de Sanidad establishes the fundamental characteristics of the SNS:
  a. Extension of services to the entire population.
  b. Adequate organization to provide comprehensive health care, including promotion of health, prevention of disease, treatment and rehabilitation.
  c. Coordination and, as needed, integration of all public health resources into a single system.
  d.
context_section_description: At times, patients will require specialized health care services. These may be provided in external consultations, day hospitals, or on an inpatient basis.
  Examples of specialized services are intensive and critical care, anesthesia, defibrillation, but also some forms of hemotherapy, rehabilitation, and even nutrition, diet, post-partum treatment, and family planning, especially assisted reproductive technology.  Specialized treatment can also be involved in detection, prescription and implementation of diagnostic and therapeutic procedures, especially those related to prenatal diagnosis in risk groups, diagnosis by imaging, interventionist radiology, hemodynamics, nuclear medicine, neurophysiology, endoscopy, lab tests, biopsies, radiotherapy, radiosurgery, renal lithotripsy, dialysis, techniques of respiratory therapy, organ transplants and other tissue and cell transplants.
caption: Laparoscopy is a specialized diagnostic tool. Here, a colangiography image done during a laparoscopic cholecystectomy.
exif: {}