Health policy as a process and as activities in the sphere of public responsibility may cause different evaluation problems but at the same time the proper and reliable assessment should be understood as the essential interest of the engaged stakeholders: government at different levels, payers, providers and patients as well. The paper concerns the problem of difficulties influencing the research focused on the health policy description aiming at the indication of the most important factors, effects, possible development dimensions that may significantly change the health system. The methodology in this case is also a complicated issue: quite often based on the instruments typical for social disciplines but not completely applicable for the presented subject. The paper describes the new innovative and universal tool for the purpose of the analysis aiming at reliable and comparable health policy assessment, it presents the stages and objectives of such evaluation and the perspectives of the HPA matrix development both for research and for didactic purposes.

The aim of this paper is a systematic description and classification of the deliberative poll (DP) as a potentially innovative method of participation in health policy. The paper discusses the theory of deliberative democracy and a specific method of deliberative polling, as well as examples of its application, along with critical commentary. It summarises the characteristics of DP: advantages and disadvantages, as well as conditions for proper application. In this context an important distinction is made between two ideal types of participation: co-decision and consultation. A key feature of the latter is its advisory, and not decisive, character. DP is considered an example of such non-decisive, consultative participation.

The Impact of e-Health Technologies on Development of Innovative Model of Service Delivery on Health Care

ICT (Information and Communication Technology) may be powerful source of the innovation in health care in many areas, but change of the model of care delivery and of the relations between participants of the health care market is the most visible trace. The access to relevant information became a prerequisite to patient empowerment in his or her relation with health care professionals. Nowadays, the patient is expected to take active role in care processes and abandon the attitute of a passive recipient of medical services.
There are also many challenges for health care professionals. Apart from the requirement of partnership relations with patients, health care professionals are obliged to follow evidence-based guidelines in their practice. The quality assurance strategies became inherent element of clinical activities. E-health environment brings a set of tools which can support all players active in health care domain in smooth adoption of new policies and requirements.
The paper focuses on the issues of enhancement of access to health-related information by patients and health care professionals, medical information management and patient safety achieved with e-health technologies. A new model of health care delivery, especially for chronic care, based on the intensive use of e-health systems is proposed

The aim of this article is to show the general possibility of application of chosen economic evaluation to assess innovative health technologies. The focus will be on the advantages related to use of HTA in decision making. It seems that the most important consequence of using economic evaluation is an opportunity to direct comparisons of the cost effectiveness and health benefits generated by innovative technologies which are financed from public sources.

In last 10 years in Poland we could observe legislation changes and discussion about a vison and model of electronic medical data. The article presents chronologically historical regulations due the decade and emerge the chances and risks connected with the newest binding rules. Authors of the article are stricktly interested and engaged into the legislation process of medical data in Poland.

The necessity of the hospitals status change in Poland was the hot issue for quite a long time. The problems of hospitals debts, local governments role, state (public) ownership problems, management weaknesses, resources lack, humans resources problems and many others have been stressed in public debates, often by different sides and political parties. The present Ministry of Health from the very beginning proposed the formal status change concerning ownership of health care units, mainly hospitals, as a first step for the system transformation in this respect. The proposal of the new legislation called the Health package included such approach. One of the most important laws in the package was the “Hospitals privatisation”, subsequently vetoed by the President representing the political opposition. The next step toward the transformation was the governmental Plan B, proposed also by Ministry of Health, criticized for the improper legal instruments and infectivity of the proposed strategy. The new legislation, described in this paper, is a consequence of the process and the main issue of the analysis undertaken hereby.

The innovation in pharmaceutical sector can be characterized as incremental. The expectations towards new drugs are very high but the access of Polish patients to the pharmaceutical innovation is limited. Role and perception of this innovation within the Polish health care policy are not signaled coherently and unambiguously. The Reimbursement Act is an important new legal act, which was intensely debated in the second half of 2010 and the first half of 2011.This legal act changes conditions of functioning of virtually all subjects acting on the market of pharmaceuticals which are financed from public sources. The Reimbursement Act introduces thorough changes into the pharmaceutical policy and pricing and reimbursement policies. These changes can influence the pharmaceutical innovation in the Polish health care system. It is impossible to circumscribe the direction of these changes decisively. However, there is a hope for a summary positive influence of new regulations, so monitoring of a manner of implementation of the Reimbursement Act will be necessary.

The aim of the work is to discuss the workers’ professional responsibility of the health care system. Proper exercising of the right to health and the right to protect health, first of all, depends on effective and stable law which would regulate the functioning of the health care system and on well prepared workers. Apart from the level of knowledge and factual preparation to work in the profession, the determinants of the workers’ qualifications of the health care system are high sensibility, both ethical and moral. Actions or nonfeasances which determine professional responsibility of workers are characterized by infringement and they violate particular obligations. Responsibility of workers of health care is one of the mechanisms which should guarantee a satisfactory level of medical services. Its aim is to make the worker, who was proved to behave improperly, improve his/her actions, especially those serious ones and the ones which are repeated. Otherwise he/she could be temporarily or permanently deprived of his/her right to practice. The doctors who possess a diploma, but they do not have the right to carry the occupation are not subject to this mode. The range of doctors’ professional responsibility is defined generally and the forbidden actions are not exactly described. Nurses and midwives bear the responsibility for the whole range of professional activity, including the field of relations nurse – patient – the members of the therapeutic team. The legal responsibility means the necessity of bearing the consequences provided for by legal regulations. Dissatisfaction with the health care system is justified but very often directed in an impropriate way. Surely, the quality of the doctors’ or nursing practise should be constantly improved and while improving the conditions, the responsibility should increase.

In the last 20 years the United States, in contrast to European Union countries, has not experienced a reduction in fertility. The socio-economic determinants of fertility of women are widely discussed in the literature. Fertility of women in the United States is determined by many factors, including religion, education, income, place of birth, ethnicity, immigration status, marital status and age. The presented paper reviews results of selected studies published in the last 40 years in demographic journals and focuses on the relationship between religion, income, education and immigration status and fertility of women in the United States.

In conclusion, postnatally depressed fathers and/or mothers go through silent suffering. Hence, postnatal depression not only increases the global burden of depression but also affects physical, social and emotional health of the family. As a result of that, it becomes a major public health issue. There are risks of developmental delay of the children whose one parent is depressed and the risk increases when both parents are depressed. The negative effect of parental depression on the family as well as treatment and prevention. The consideration of postnatal depression of mothers as well as fathers is an important next step in research, practice and policy involving childbearing families.

Grupa Robocza na rzecz Innowacji w Opiece Zdrowotnej skupiająca ekspertów różnych dziedzin nauki, świadczeniodawców oraz pacjentów przeanalizowała poziom udostępnienia polskim pacjentom nowej lub też ulepszonej wiedzy medycznej, służącej podniesieniu skuteczności i bezpieczeństwa terapii oraz poprawie jakości życia chorych w Polsce na tle innych krajów Unii Europejskiej. W świetle dokonanych analiz stwierdzono, iż pomimo pozytywnych zmian w ostatnich latach ograniczona dostępność nowoczesnych terapii medycznych dla pacjentów w Polsce pozostaje nadal aktualnym wyzwaniem dla systemu zdrowotnego

Dzień 18 kwietnia został ustanowiony Europejskim Dniem Praw Pacjenta przez organizację pozarządową Active Citizenship Network oraz stowarzyszenia zrzeszające pacjentów. Dzień ten jest obchodzony we wszystkich krajach UE w celu przypomnienia o przestrzeganiu praw pacjenta zawartych w Europejskiej Karcie Praw Pacjenta. W tym roku obchodziliśmy V Europejski Dzień Praw Pacjenta. Z tej okazji Instytut Praw Pacjenta i Edukacji Zdrowotnej (IPPiEZ) zorganizował w Warszawie konferencję „Pacjent i jego prawa – w Polsce i UE”, w której udział wzięli m.in. Minister Zdrowia Ewa Kopacz, Rzecznik Praw Pacjenta Krystyna Barbara Kozłowska  oraz Poseł na Sejm RP Marek Balicki. Gościem specjalnym był John Dalli – Komisarz UE ds. Zdrowia i Polityki Konsumenckiej. W konferencji brali udział przedstawiciele organizacji pacjenckich z całej Polski.

W dniu 16 kwietnia 2011 roku odbyło się międzynarodowe sympozjum naukowe zorganizowane z okazji XX--lecia Szkoły i Instytutu Zdrowia Publicznego Wydziału Nauk o Zdrowiu Uniwersytetu Jagiellońskiego Collegium Medicum zatytułowane „Zdrowie publiczne w Europie”. Konferencja zgromadziła blisko 200 uczestników – studentów i  absolwentów szkoły. Obok nich gośćmi specjalnymi byli m.in. John Dalli – Komisarz Unii Europejskiej ds. Zdrowia i Konsumentów, prof. Helmut Brand – Prezydent elekt Stowarzyszenia Szkół Zdrowia Publicznego w Regionie Europejskim (ASPHER), dr Marek Haber – Podsekretarz Stanu w Ministerstwie Zdrowia RP, dr Maciej Piróg – Doradca Prezydenta RP ds. Zdrowia oraz dr Andrzej Ryś – Dyrektor ds. Zdrowia Publicznego w Dyrekcji Generalnej Zdrowia i Konsumentów Komisji Europejskiej, który w latach 1992–1996 był dyrektorem Szkoły Zdrowia Publicznego.

W bieżącym roku upływa 40 lat od momentu rozpoczęcia przez Prof. Cezarego W. Włodarczyka pracy zawodowej. Pomimo iż pierwsze stanowisko pracy Profesora jako referenta prawnego w zakładzie produkcyjnym nie było związane z dziedziną, która obecnie zdominowała jego naukowe dociekania – czyli z polityką zdrowotną, to jednak do dzisiaj coś z tych prawniczych zainteresowań mu pozostało.