Poland lags in data on health quality

Some say Poland is missing out on potential for medical tourism because of a dearth of
standards and data.

WARSAW — Poland has significant work to do to comply with news rules under the EU’s cross-border health directive, with patients still skeptical of lax standards and dodgy quality, key players at a conference on the topic said.

The 2011 measure lets patients cross the bloc’s borders for planned medical care under certain conditions, and requires member states to provide patients with information about the quality of care they would receive if they choose to be treated there. Such information is hard to come by in many member states, but is especially lacking in Poland.

The health ministry has accredited just 203 hospitals out of a total of roughly 800 in the country, according to government data. And the ministry’s standards are somewhat lower than those found in western EU states.

“The biggest challenge for Poland is the availability of information,” said Grzegorz Byszewski, a representative at the Employers of Poland, a business lobby group. “Patients who may want to come here have no idea about the quality of care they will receive.”

He said that Poland is missing out on an opportunity to attract more medical tourists who could provide needed injections of money both into Poland’s cash-strapped health care system and to local economies.

Poland already has a reputation for lower quality care, due to its status as a post-communist country.

Poles themselves don’t think very highly of the quality of their health care system. According to a 2013 Eurobarometer poll, 62 percent of Polish respondents said they believe that their health care system is “very bad.” A meager 22 percent said that Polish hospitals had modern equipment and respected the dignity of their patients.

According to Barbara Kutryba, the chairperson of the EU Patient Safety and Quality of Care Expert Group, one of the key issues Poland must address is a set of standards and a system for reporting undesired medical events.

“Poland doesn’t have the necessary standards like other member states,” she said. Poland also has no supervisory organization for monitoring patient safety and quality of care.

The cross-border initiative sought to clarify patients’ rights to health care services outside their home country, but recent reports suggest it is mostly the wealthy and well-informed that are benefiting. The Commission is due to report on countries’ progress in implementation later this month.

Poland spends about 4.5 percent of its GDP on health care, compared with an average of about 6.5 percent among wealthy countries, according to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development.

Increasing funding, and hopefully thereby raising the quality of the care, has long been a thorny issue in Poland, since it would likely require hiking the health care “contribution” from worker’s salaries (effectively a payroll tax).

Implementing a system of comprehensive private health insurance, which would take some of the burden off the system, is considered by many to be against the country’s constitution, which guarantees equal access to health care.

With Poles complaining about long lines and the quality of care in their own hospitals, the issue could become important in the country’s upcoming parliamentary elections. The opposition Law and Justice party, which is currently leading the ruling Civic Platform party in the polls, has proposed liquidating the country’s National Health Fund, which controls health spending, and favors funding hospitals and clinics directly from the budget.

Civic Platform has not yet released its election program.