Jose Martínez Olmos (Guadix, Granada, Spain, 1958). Bachelor of medicine and surgery at the University of Granada. Specialized in Preventive Medicine and Public Health. Master of Public Health and Health Administration.

Though his current position is Health General Secretary, his permanent position is professor at the Public Health School of Andalucia (EASP) since 1988, after having worked for the Directorate General for Primary Health Care and Health Promotion at the Andalucia Autonomic Government (1984-1988). At the EASP he as also performed tasks of coordinator of the Health Management and Health Policies Area as well as coordinator for ten years of the Master of Public Health and Health Management.

He has directed more than fifty research studies in the fields of public health, disease prevention and health services management. He has also developed activities of health cooperation as an EASP expert in Argentina, Guatemala, Panama, Venezuela, Nicaragua and Bosnia-Herzegovina.

Regarding his political dedication it is worth highlighting that during the period 2000-2004 he has being health advisor to the Socialist Parliament Group in the Congress of Deputies and to the Social and Migrant Policies Secretary within the executive leaded by Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero. He was appointed coordinator of the PSOE (Spanish Socialist Party) health electoral programme during last 2004 general elections that served as a basis for the current socialist Government programme in the field of health.

Since April 2004 to September 2005 he has held the position of Director General of Pharmacy and Medical Devices of the Ministry of Health and Consumer Affairs. In this position he has being working in the start-up of relevant initiatives such as the Pharmaceutical Policy Strategic Plan and also in the development of the new Guarantees and Rational Use of Medicinal Products and Medical Devices Law.

Since September 2005 up until now, Jose Martinez Olmos is the Health General Secretary of the Ministry of Health and Consumer Affairs. In this ministerial responsibility it can be pointed out his work in the development of the Quality Plan for the National Health System with a very relevant focus on the close work with scientific societies, as well as (this is way he is now today) his work encouraging health technology assessment through the definition of the main lines of the NHS (National Health System) HTA (Health Technology Assessment) Plan developed together with the agencies and assessment units in our country and financed with Quality Plan funds, a project that is marking a milestone in the history of our system as far as health technology assessment concerns.