2023 Laws of Puerto Rico › TITLE TWENTY-FOUR - Health and Sanitation (§§ 1 — 15010) › PART VII - Hospitals, Institutions and Health Programs (§§ 3001 — 3891) › Chapter 131 - Health Services Integral Reform (§§ 3001 — 3030) › § 3003 - Definitions

The following terms and phrases, where used or referred to in this chapter, shall have the meanings stated below, unless the context clearly indicates otherwise:
(a) Administration. — Means the Health, Services and Facilities Administration created by Act No. 26 of November 13, 1975.
(b) Council. — Means the Coordinating Health Council created herein.
(c) Health-service consumers =roor =it consumers. — Means any person other than a health-service provider, as defined herein.
(d) Department. — Means the Department of Health.
(e) Health facilities. — Shall have the same meaning that is given to it in §§ 334—334j of this title, including pharmacies.
(f) Free selection. — Is the right that every individual has of freely choosing the physician, odontologist and hospital of his trust, regardless of geographical or regional barriers, or that the State or any other body shall attempt to dictate the professional or hospital to which he must go; this right being subject, in the case of the public health sector, to the available State resources and to the system adopted by the government to provide public services.
(g) Medication. — Means a drug, alone or combined with one (1) or more components in an adequate dose for dispensing.
(h) Generic medications. — Are those medicines that are marketed under their common or official chemical name, as designated by the United States Adopted Names Council, and published in the United States Pharmacopedia Dictionary of Drug Names. Generic medications could be bioequivalent or not, to the medication with the original trademark identified by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) as a reference medication in its category [sic].
(i) Paramedical personnel. — Refers to the nonmedical person whose work and functions are directly related to the rendering of health services.
(j) Licensed physician. — Means any person duly authorized under the laws of the Commonwealth to practice the profession of physician, surgeon, osteopath or odontologist.
(k) Health-service professional. — Refers to any person whose work and functions are directly related to any of the health-service professions.
(l) Health-service professions. — Refers to such professions as are directly related to the rendering of professional health services, such as medicine, odontology, pharmaceutics, health service administration, nutrition and dietetics, nursing, physiotherapy, medical technology, occupational therapy, [psychology, medical-social work, podiatry, speech therapy], optometry, health education, chiropractics, dental hygiene and care, and other similar ones.
(m) Providers =roor =it health-services providers. — Refers to those persons who provide health services, including those who sell or distribute drugs and medications.
(n) Preventive health =roand =it preventive health services. — Refers to services that are offered to promote and preserve the physical and mental health of the individual.
(o) Secretary. — Means the Secretary of Health.
(p) Health services. — Refers to the services offered to promote, preserve, restore and rehabilitate the physical and mental health of individuals.
(q) Primary health services. — Refers to those services for the maintenance of health and the diagnosis and treatment of illnesses, including emergency services.
(r) System. — Refers, in its application in the health area, to the group of mechanisms and bodies through which the physical and human resources are organized by means of an administrative process, and the medical technology needed for the furnishing of health services that will respond to adequate standards of quality. This process should be addressed to meet the community’s demand for services at a cost that is compatible with the available financial resources. By the same token, this includes the design and establishment of mechanisms and bodies to coordinate the parts or elements of the Health System, to achieve its integral operation.
History —June 23, 1976, No. 11, p. 672, § 3; June 29, 1977, No. 124, p. 338, § 3; July 11, 1978, No. 32, p. 459, § 1; June 12, 1980, No. 124, p. 449, § 1; July 24, 1985, No. 16, p. 711, § 1; Dec. 28, 1995, No. 257, § 1; July 20, 2000, No. 123, § 1; Sept. 3, 2004, No. 247, § 7.05(b).