Decentralisation of Health Care in Croatia - Teaching Model and Challenges?

Abstract

The precondition for implementation of decentralisation in healthcare is the education and empowerment of medical professionalsand local politicians for management and decision-making. Thedecentralisation in health care has to be planned to suit the needsof regions and population (bottom-up), and not to follow the uniformmodel devised by the central government. The processes ofdecentralisation can have a negative effect on the quality of healthcare, increase prices and emphasise inequity in health. The poorlymanaged decentralisation can slow down the development andblock the changes.

Keywords

• decentralization
• management
• health care reform
• policy
• transition