After a successful first run in 2019, the INESS Institute published the 2020 international healthcare ranking Health for Money. The rankings follow 23 various indicators including life expectancy, maternal mortality, the consumption of antibiotics, the number of cancer-related deaths, the number of medical employees, and the average length of hospital stays.

Analysts indexed and weighted the indicators by healthcare per capita expenditures (corrected by comparisons of average wage level in the country).

The leader of the index is Iceland, followed by Italy, Spain, Poland, and Estonia. Slovak health care was ranked 21st among 25 European countries.

INESS also delivered recommendations to improve Slovakia’s ranking. We recommend evaluating the data and proposing measures to lower neonatal and infant mortality, especially in the case of marginalized groups.

Another solution may lie in the prevention of the hospitalization of patients with chronic disease, especially hypertension and diabetes, in a better model of motivation for doctors and in the improvement of the population’s attitude towards active prevention.

Other recommendations include strengthening the role of research at the medical faculties, strictly following the value for money principle including in the drugs policy, weakening mechanisms, which do not tie resources with quality, and allowing health insurers to differentiate payments based on the quality of offered services. They also see value in improving the care of long-term patients.