According to the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic, medical teleconsultations using various technologies have become an important tool to mediate communication between general practitioners (GP) and the patients in primary health care in many countries. The quality of the GP-patient communication is an essential factor, which improves the results of treatment and patient satisfaction. The objective of this paper is to study patients’ satisfaction from teleconsultation in primary care and the impact of teleconsultations on GP-patient communication through the Covid-19 pandemic in Poland. We analyse whether the teleconsultations performed without physical examinations have a positive impact on GP-patient communication. The quality of teleconsultation and GP-patient communication have been measured using a questionnaire regarding the quality of medical care in a remote care conditions. Among 36 items, nine questions have been related to the dimension of GP-patient communication and ten to system experience. Our results suggest that the quality of teleconsultations is not inferior to the quality of consultation during a face-to-face visit. The patients indicated a high level of satisfaction regarding communication with their GP during teleconsultation. We have also identified that the technical quality and the sense of comfort during teleconsultation positively impact the communication quality.

Introduced in 2003, net promoter score (NPS) very quickly gained popularity, as a customer loyalty measure, among companies and a part of researchers, due to its simplicity, the ease of interpretation, low costs of calculation, and, overall, its assumed impact on future growth and profitability. In due course of literature review, it was identified that not all researchers endorsed NPS, rejecting its presumed impact on growth and its superiority over other loyalty measures. This study aims therefore to verify the influence of NPS on the growth and profitability of Polish transportation companies. This objective is achieved with the use of Spearman correlation ranks and linear regression. The findings of this study reject the proclaimed relationship between NPS and growth; hence, in that matter, the results are aligned to criticism presented in literature. The study, however, confirmed a positive and statistically significant relationship between NPS and profitability. Accordingly, the study recommends Polish transportation companies to include NPS in a portfolio of metrics, however, not as a stand-alone diagnostic tool.

In Poland, as in many other countries, the use of capitation payment schemes in primary health care is popular. Despite this popularity, the subject literature discusses its role in decreasing the quality of primary medical services. This problem is particularly important during COVID-19, when medical entities provide telehealth services to patients. The objective of the study is to examine the effects of COVID-19 pandemic on the performance of the primary health care providers in Poland under a capitation payment scheme. In this study the authors use data from interviews with personnel of medical entities and financial and administrative reports of primary health care providers in order to identify how this crisis situation impacts the performance of primary health care entities, under capitation payment system. The performance indicators include both the financial and quality measures. Selected to the case study primary health care service providers significantly improved their profitability due to considerable costs savings and reduction of services provided to patients in a time of COVID-19 pandemic. Capitation payment system proved to be inefficient, in the studied pandemic period, in terms of the services provided by primary health care service providers to patients and the funds paid to them, in exchange, by the government entities.

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to identify critical success factors (CSF) and to examine their influence on the performance of Polish agricultural distributors operating within local agro-food systems. Design/methodology/approach A mixed methods research approach comprising eight in-depth expert interviews and regression analysis of unbalanced panel data based upon a sample of 22 of the most significant Polish agricultural distributors over the period 2006−2016 is applied. Findings The following CSF have been identified and confirmed empirically: market share, gross margins (GM), high accounts payable levels, low assets maintenance, sound historical results and the use of external financing. Additionally, the regression model, based on stated variables, has been estimated. The highest regression coefficient values of GM, market share and accounts payable appear to play key roles in enhancing these companies’ performance. Research limitations/implications First, only Polish agricultural distribution companies with the market share exceeding 80 percent are considered. Second, not all of the identified CSF have been empirically tested, but only CSF filtered out by industry experts as the most important. Practical implications The proposed set of CSF can be directly implemented by agricultural distributors in order to focus on critical areas and therefore improve their performance. Originality/value The first set of CSF for agricultural distributors is identified, empirically tested and presented. Furthermore, the significance of the proposed CSF has been econometrically measured.

The rapid, unexpected, and large-scale expansion of the SARS-CoV-19 pandemic has led to a global health and economy crisis. However, although the crisis itself is a worldwide phenomenon, there have been considerable differences between respective countries in terms of SARS-CoV-19 morbidities and fatalities as well as the GDP impact. The object of this paper was to study the influence of the SARS-CoV-19 pandemic on global gross domestic product. We analyzed data relating to 176 countries in the 11-month period from February 2020 to December 2020. We employed SARS-CoV-19 morbidity and fatality rates reported by different countries as proxies for the development of the pandemic. The analysis employed in our study was based on moving median and quartiles, Kendall tau-b coefficients, and multi-segment piecewise-linear approximation with Theil–Sen trend lines. In the study, we empirically confirmed and measured the negative impact of the SARS-CoV-19 pandemic on the respective national economies. The relationship between the pandemic and the economy is not uniform and depends on the extent of the pandemic’s development. The more intense the pandemic, the more adaptive the economies of specific countries become.