Zagreb, February 28, 2019 – Improving health outcomes for the population in countries across the European region through hospital reforms is the focus of a workshop hosted by the Ministry of Health of the Republic of Croatia and the World Bank in Zagreb today. The "Functional integration and beyond: Planning for new role of hospitals in Croatia" workshop aims to provide a platform to share experiences between policy-makers and stakeholders in addressing hospital service reconfiguration and to identify priority topics and policy tools to further strengthen ongoing hospital reforms.
Country experiences will be shared from Croatia, Estonia, France, Poland, among others, with participants from Croatia, Bulgaria, Moldova, Serbia and Ukraine. Participants will present the current policy promoting hospital integration, assess reform options and propose a vision on the way forward towards a greater integration of the hospital network.
“Today’s workshop contributes to our efforts in support of efficient implementation of the health system reform in the Republic of Croatia through the model of functional integration of hospitals. Despite challenges, we remain committed to achieving the objectives of the functional integration, including improvements in the quality of health protection and achieving and sustaining financial stabilization of the health system,” said Milan Kujundžić, Minister of Health of the Republic of Croatia.
“Hospital services have changed in past decades with medical and technological advances, a shift toward day surgery and outpatient care, improvement of quality and efficiency. The process of change must be sustained to improve performance of health systems and respond to future challenges among which are the rise of chronic disease and multi-morbidity and sustainability. This workshop is a great opportunity to share lessons learned among countries and find innovative solutions to tackle these challenges”, stated Tania Dmytraczenko, Manager, Global Practice for Health Nutrition and Population, Europe and Central Asia.
Across countries, hospitals are facing challenges driving the need to reconfigure how health services are delivered. Ministries of Health throughout Europe are looking to improve efficiency, address new patient needs with the rise of chronic diseases and ageing population, adapt to new technologies and medical practices and improve the quality of services, while functioning with tighter budgets at their disposal. To address these challenges countries are implementing changes and reconfiguring hospitals to improve efficiency and quality of care.
The World Bank has been a development partner to Croatia in the health sector since 1999 through implementation of several health projects and provision of advice and analysis on how to improve the provision of health services to the Croatian people. The Bank’s current program supports the Government’s 2012-2020 National Health Care Strategy and aims to improve the access, quality and efficiency of public health services by strengthening management capacity in health care, reorganizing the structure and activities of health care institutions, improving the quality of health care, strengthening preventative activities, and preserving the financial sustainability of the system.
