Watch Health Care launches access monitoring site

2010-03-10

Watch Health Care, a foundation chaired by HTA expert Krzysztof Landa, has launched 'Korektor Zdrowia', an online service for the monitoring of access to primary medical care in Poland. It will collect data about waiting times for popular procedures available under mandatory health insurance, and in about three months’ time will publish a ranking of the least accessible procedures. The data are to be more up-to-date and detailed than those provided by the National Health Fund (NFZ). The objective is to put pressure on decision-makers and healthcare executives to tackle the problem of waiting lists, which are persistently high even despite substantial increases in healthcare spending. According to Landa, current valuations of many basic procedures are flawed and take no account of real demand. A change could improve access to many procedures immediately. As things stand, many profitable, effective and sought-after procedures are unnecessarily restricted.