Ewa Kocot

W dniach 18–21 lipca 2012 roku w Zurychu odbyła się po raz dziewiąty Europejska Konferencja Ekonomiki Zdrowia, organizowana przez International Health Economics Association (IHEA, Międzynarodowe Stowarzyszenie Ekonomiki Zdrowia). Konferencja ta odbywa się regularnie co dwa lata, na przemian z analogicznym kongresem o zasięgu ogólnoświatowym

There were very different methods of health measurement and kinds of indicators used through the years, but a key objective of these indicators usage was, and still is, an improvement of health state. The complex, reliable, clear and standard methods of health measurement are needed to plan and introduce effective actions in health care. Despite many years of work on the indicators of health, the measure meeting all these conditions has not been constructed yet. At the beginning health indicators were mainly related to population health and communicable diseases. Currently, after a period of “medicalization” of measurement, a growing emphasis placed on indicators supporting the public health can be observed. In this article the development process of health measurement was briefly presented and some health indicators were described.

Demographic changes – World, Europe, Poland. Impact of demographic changes on labour market and health care sector

The population ageing is an universal problem concerning all countries in the world, not only in Europe. The main sources of this process are decreasing fertility and increasing life expectancy. The migration has additional impact on ageing in some countries. The ageing of population means many new challenges in the field of economy and society. The quality of life of older people and the entire  population as well depends on how countries will meet these challenges and how societies will adapt to the changing demographic conditions. Longer life can mean activity, health and participation, but it depends on properly planned activities in many areas of social and economic life. The phenomenon of ageing and the consequences associated with them are extremely complex and multilateral issues. The presented article focuses on the comparision of the process of ageing in different continents and countries, particularly in Poland. It concerns the problem of the ageing impact on labour market and health care sector as well.

Population aging challenge – the conference at Jagiellonian University and research

The population aging process is inherent feature of all contemporary societies. It places enormous pressure on all countries health and social systems. The demographic changes lead to both the organizational as well as financial challenges. The aim of the article is to present the scope and diversity of the ‘population aging’ influence on the health care sector – by description of various, related researches, projects and activities conducted within the past several years, in Europe and Poland. The authors provide brief summaries of contemporary researches and analyze the effects of the population aging on the Polish health care system in its: organizational (human resources), financial (costs of treatment, public expenditure) and social (disability, informal care) aspects. The need for comprehensive (combining education, labour, health and social sectors), long-term strategy focused on the population aging challenge is emphasized

Aspiration for health care system improvement can be observed in almost each country. However the health policy activities should be based on comprehensive and reliable information about current health status of population, health care system performance valuation and monitoring, health needs and identification of priorities in the health sector. The information can be efficiently collected and presented in the form of health indicators. The health indicators application in the epidemiology is obvious, but rapid growth of health expenditures in the last years causes considerable increase of interest in the problems of wider usage of health indicators.
If we assume wide health indicators definition they could be divided into four groups, depending on the field they concern: indicators of population characteristics, indicators of individual and population health status, indicators of non-medical determinants of health and indicators of health system performance. The analysis of health indicators indicates their  following functions: information, diagnosis, planning, comparing, prognosis, monitoring, evaluation. Many indicators may perform different  functions, depending on the level of usage and the main aims defined.

Human resources in health care. Up-to–date trends and projections

The article presents the diagnosis of trends in health care sector personnel in Poland, particularly physicians and nurses, and projections of the future personnel taking into account population ageing. The article is based on the NEUJOBS project research performed within the European Commission 7th Framework Programme. The analysis and projections use quantitative data: administrative, Eurostat data and GUS survey results. The density of employment of the health personnel per 1000 inhabitants is lower in Poland than in other EU-countries. In the future the demand for the medical personnel will be growing due to the increased needs for health care and ageing. The projections show that shortages of personnel will be faced by hospitals, particularly for specializations related to treatment of chronic diseases, while this is not the case in primary care. The size of the demand for medical personnel will be subjected to increase in technical efficiency of hospitals.