An Analysis of the Results of the Euro Health Consumer Index from 2014 to 2017 with Special Reference to Prevention Indicators

Abstract

The key goal of this paper is to compare quality and efficiency indicators of the level of healthcare services in the Republic of Croatia to other EU countries using the ‘Euro Health Consumer Index (EHCI)’ analysis, published by the renowned Swedish company Health Powerhouse. The mentioned company publishes a new edition of the EHCI annually, comparing trends of certain indicators or groups of indicators for each country. Due to the great heritage of Prof. Andrija Štampar and his followers, the Republic of Croatia is well-known in Europe and beyond as a pioneer of today’s model of primary healthcare and preventive activities. Unfortunately, according to the EHCI, after years of insufficient funding and an unsupervised education model, the Croatia shows the worst scores precisely in the indicators related to prevention quality. It is also important to mention that the poor results of prevention-based activities have a strong pharmacoeconomic impact; it is widely known that one kuna invested in prevention and primary healthcare is equivalent to 10 kunas invested in hospital treatment.

Keywords

• prevention; euro health consumer index; primary healthcare