The book consists of three major sections devoted to the history, condition, principles of organization and management of outpatient polyclinic care in the USSR; organization of community-based specialized care and prospects for its development. This structure of material distribution should be recognized as more successful than the composition of other monographs due to its orientation to problems, taking into account their priority. In these sections, the most important theoretical aspects of providing medical care to the population in outpatient clinics are closely related to the practice of healthcare, which emphasizes the high professional competence of the authors. The manual reflects the latest policy documents of the party and the government, which address health issues, as well as the most important industry orders, etc. The illustrative material allows us to present the structure and functions of individual departments of the hospital care service from the standpoint of a systematic approach. All this is an indisputable advantage of this manual. The first section consists of two chapters covering the problems of medical examination and health care management in the USSR. Based on the vast experience accumulated by healthcare in this area, the authors characterize the most important scientific and organizational and methodological issues of medical examination of the population.