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Examines the outcomes of attempts to improve health services in the former Communist countries of Eastern Europe and in the West European democracies. Discovers that while the East Europeans focused their efforts on increasing the numbers of doctors and beds per patient, while keeping to relatively low levels of investment in technological advances, West European countries have taken the opposite approach, emphasizing quality of care, particularly advanced care, reducing the numbers of physicians and hospital beds, acquiring advanced technological systems for diagnosis and treatment and spending ten times as much per patient as in Eastern Europe. Concludes that the West European approach has led to far better results.