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.

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.