The EU Member States’ national healthcare systems compared using the single synthetic index

Abstract

Implementation of health protection requires effective quantitative methods of its evaluation. Assessment could be based on usage of synthetic indices which aggregate couple input variables into a single measure. In this paper, the exploitation of a new synthetic index (by the author called HAI—the Healthcare Aggregated Index) was proposed with the aim of the assessment and long-term interstate comparisons of healthcare systems of the EU countries. Using taxonomic methodology, HAI involves three variables: the number of hospital beds, the number of physicians and the public expenditures on healthcare. HAI utilisation includes dynamic interstate comparisons of national healthcare systems of the different exploitations of human, physical and financial resources. The HAI application to assessment of twenty European Union Member States’ healthcare systems revealed an effect of substitution between healthcare resources within the slight international differentiation of the health protection level and the minor dynamic of changes in time series.

Socioeconomic Determinants of Health and Their Unequal Distribution in Poland

“…Then, multiple regression analysis was employed in order to identify the most significant determinants of health at the level of Polish powiats. Mortality rate was adopted as a measure of the health status of the population [97] and incorporated into the regression model as a dependent variable. The mean value of the dependent variable was 10.86, median 10.75, maximum 17.53, minimum 6.45, variance 2.33 and standard deviation 1.53.…”

The eHealth usage during COVID-19 pandemic 2020 year–Case of Poland

“…• DOC: practising physicians per capita (here used as an estimator of accessibility to healthcare [55]).…”

“…Internet use, Internet skills and average monthly disposable income per capita in PLN with the number of practicing physicians per capita (which is used as an estimator of accessibility to healthcare [55]). Thus, all digital variables (INT-Access, INT-Use, INT-Skills) appeared to be very important concerning the level of eHealth usage.…”

“…This may result from the substantial shortage of medical professionals in the Polish healthcare system. The problem of the low number of practicing physicians in Poland in comparison to other countries was raised in an earlier publication [55,56]. eHealth is not a tool which should replace physicians, but it is dedicated to make contact easier with medical professionals.…”