In the coming days, the Ministry of Health will publish the partial results of the first phase of the conditional classification of the hospital network. These are exclusively basic medical programmes that the hospital must provide. Other programmes will be added to the list in the coming months. Categorisation reform of the hospital network is a necessary response to the natural extinction of hospitals and departments in recent decades. Thanks to the categorization, the network will stabilise and remove the doctor's system after familiarity. The preliminary partial results of the conditional classification of hospitals will be made available to the public by the end of the year. The results will only relate to mandatory medical programmes necessary for each group of facilities. Additional medical programmes will be published in the first quarter of 2023, beyond the mandatory ones. In practice, this means that programmes that are operating today and are not listed in the partial conditional classification of mandatory programmes will continue to run and will be categorized in the coming months. The first preliminary results of the categorization should be seen exclusively as the skeleton of the future hospital network. Subsequently, further medical programmes will be added to each hospital,Vladimír Lengvarský, health minister, declared.
According to his words, the first preliminary map of the hospital network must be read as rough foundations on which further medical programmes will be added at a later stage. I will say this in an exact way towards patients and medical staff. If your department belongs to a programme which is not included in the first phase of the preliminary categorisation, this does not in any way mean that the compartment is automatically cancelled or planned to be cancelled.
There is no room for concern or doubt, as the reform is not intended to disrupt well-functioning departments;– continues Vladimir Lengvarsky. On the contrary, the reform of the hospital network has to stabilise health care in Slovakia. This is a necessary response to the development of the last thirty years, during which the departments and hospitals throughout Slovakia have physically disappeared. This is especially true of maternity care.
For the first time, strict and public waiting periods for scheduled healthcare for patients will be set. Time availability of healthcare is set, while quality indicators are set for individual hospitals. We need to get out of a state where, in the event of a person's health problems, he begins to seek out a doctor after a friend. The main idea is to set up a network through which the patient will not invade. He will know exactly where he will get quality healthcare in his area and at the same time have clear information on when the planned care will be provided to him at the latest;The Minister for Health said.
Hospitals with approved medical programmes will be obliged to contract all health insurance companies. This means in practice that facilities will not have to negotiate regularly with insurers on the scope of care. On the contrary, the patient will not have to address whether his hospital insurance company pays for the care. Under the categorisation, hospitals will be divided into five groups according to the extent of care they provide. In the fifth and fourth levels there will be highly specialised hospitals, which in addition to standard care will be treated with very low frequency, for example in the field of cardiosurgery or neurosurgery. In the third level, there will be comprehensive acute and planned care.
However, the bulk of the network will be made up of first and second-level hospitals. For example, up to 75% of all hospital admissions remain on the hips of second-level hospitals, says Vladimir Lengvarsky. The reform of the hospital network was not prepared exclusively by the Ministry of Health. It is based on accurate data and analyses, with over 400 experts working on the text, and it is worth the result of months of expert discussions with all stakeholders concerned.