Evaluation of healthcare policy in Latvia (original) (raw)

Latvia: Health System Review

Health systems in transition, 2019

This analysis of the Latvian health system reviews recent developments in organization and governance, health financing, health care provision, health reforms and health system performance. After regaining independence in 1991, Latvia experimented with a social health insurance type system. However, to overcome decentralization and fragmentation of the system, the National Health Service (NHS) was established in 2011 with universal population coverage. More recently, reforms in 2017 proposed the introduction of a Compulsory Health Insurance System, with the objective of increasing revenues for health, which links access to different health care services to the payment of social health insurance contributions. In June 2019 the implementation of this proposal was postponed to 2021. Latvia has recovered from the severe economic recession of 2008, which resulted in the adoption of austerity measures that significantly affected the health care system. The recovery has created fiscal spac...

How will future health policy impact on regional disparities and healthcare in Latvia

SHS Web of Conferences

Latvia is a country with high level of regional disparities and as researches have approved – income, education, and environment significantly affect the status of people's health. The reforms in healthcare have been carried out under the flags of accessibility, efficiency, effectiveness, and quality since 1991. Some groups support the idea that the state should take over almost all services, the others claim that more responsibilities should be transferred to the private sector, and dispute on service provider network and financing system. In accordance with the coalition theory and legislation of Latvia, the initiators and designers of the structural reforms are politicians, elected by the citizens. In theory, every politician represents the political party with its ideology and vision that is expressed in the Programme of the party. Due to Parliament elections in 2018, to understand which way the country will go, and how the chosen strategy will impact on the regional dispari...

Integrate health care system performance assessment for value-based health care implementation in Latvia

Research for Rural Development, 2021

Every year, efforts are applied worldwide, particularly in the European Union, to improve health care systems by increasing the added value of resources already available for health care financing by increasing the performance of health care systems. According to experts of the World Health Organisation (WHO) and the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), 20–40% of the resources are used for complications that could be avoided, for unnecessary treatment or administrative inefficiency. Therefore, a new initiative to improve health performance – the value-based health care concept (VBHC) is becoming increasingly popular in the world, and particularly in Europe. This scientific article aims to explore the possibilities of applying VBHC in Latvia and the interaction between various management tools in the field of health care. Application of the VBHC concept in Latvia is offered for discussion, where the outcome of the corresponding measure would be identified for...

Latvian health care competitiveness in relation to its infrastructure and available resources

SHS Web of Conferences, 2018

Resources are one of the essential indicators for the functioning of the health care system. Better health care provision is an essential prerequisite for the export of services. Traditionally a competitive health care system is linked to a number of factors (price, quality, reliability, products and services) largely determined by the new technologies, innovations and implementation the new methods. The authors of this article analyzed and collected data from the European Commission Eurostat and OECD data. Current situation in health care in Latvia is characterized by populations’ restricted access to health care services, high out-of-pocket payments and poor health outcomes of the population. More than 10% of Latvian population can’t afford medical care. The ratio of public funding for healthcare in Latvia is among the lowest in EU countries. Latvia spends 5.3% (USD PPP 1217) of GDP on health, lower than the OCED country average of 8.9% (USD PPP 3453). Latvia is facing a dramatic ...

Health system performance assessment in small countries: The case study of Latvia

The International Journal of Health Planning and Management, 2019

Managing the complexity that characterizes health systems requires sophisticated performance assessment information to support the decision-making processes of healthcare stake-holders at various levels. Accordingly, in the past few decades, many countries have designed and implemented health system performance assessment (HSPA) programmes. Literature and practice agree on the key features that performance measurement in health should have, namely, multidimensionality, evidence-based data collection, systematic benchmarking of results, shared design, transparent disclosure, and timeliness. Nevertheless, the specific characteristics of different countries may pose challenges in the implementation of such programmes. In the case of small countries, many of these challenges are common and related to their inherent characteristics , eg, small populations, small volumes of activity for certain treatments, and lack of benchmarks. Through the development of the case study of Latvia, this paper aims at discussing the challenges and opportunities for assessing health system performance in a small country. As a result, for each of the performance measurement features identified by the literature, the authors discuss the issues emerging when adopting them in Latvia and set out the potential solutions that have been designed during the development of the case study.-This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Evaluation of External Factors for the Development of the Latvian Health Sector

Humanities and Social Sciences Latvia, 2018

The aim of the study is to determine the potential priorities for policy objectives and investment areas to improve the external environment of the health sector from the perspective of increasing the health service export capacity in Latvia. The health sector is relevant for internationalisation because of the permanently increasing demand in the course of cross-border health service provision, patient mobility and cross-border technological progress. Stable increase in exports of health services in Latvia is observed and the potential priorities for policy objectives and investment conditions need to be highlighted. The study evaluates external political, economic, social and technological factors relevant for the development of Latvian health care sector by applying the PEST analysis framework. The authors based on the analysis of literature and international studies derived PEST factors reflecting the external dimension of health sector taking into account the conceptual approach of increasing the competitiveness of the National Health Service providers. The rating of the PEST components was done by the expert method and by applying structured interviews for data collection. Experts were asked to rate the PEST factors from two aspects-significance and performance, by application the Likert scale (from 0 to 5). Experts (n = 20) represent the management of health care providers active in-service provision for international customers. The study reveals that national economic and technological environment factors have the greatest significance in the health sector business environment development, ranked 4.36 and 4.35 respectively, followed by social factors (4.23) and political factors (3.97). A stable economic environment is emerging as a major development condition reflecting the current situation in Latvia. As for the performance ranking, the lowest rate is assigned to political factor group (2.18) and particularly to the factors-long-term sector strategy, the government's timing and change, transparent sector legislation, public administration capacity

Consitutional guarantees of the basic level of health care in Latvia: myth or reality?

2015

This research benefited from the interviews conducted via Skype and written communication with my former colleagues from the Latvian Ombudsman Office and the Head of the Latvian Rare Diseases Alliance, Ieva Plūme, as well as the President of the Trade Union of Health and Social Care Employees of Latvia, Dr. Valdis Keris. Special thanks go the language editor Gunita Bauere for giving substantive comments and language corrections. Last but not least, a sincere thank you goes to my family, who supported me throughout these two years of study, and all the friends that accompanied me during this period.

Health policy in the Baltic countries since the beginning of the 1990s

Health Policy, 2008

The objective of this article is to compare the development of health policies in three Baltic countries, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania in the period from 1992 to 2004 and reflect on whether key dimensions of these policies are developing in parallel, diverging or even converging in some respects. The paper identifies the similarity in the overall goals and compares the policy content in primary health care, the hospital sector and financing. We conclude that health policy in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania has been progressing in parallel towards a Western European social insurance funding model, developing a primary care system anchored on a general practitioner service and lessening the hospital orientation of the pre-1990s system. There is evidence of both convergence and divergence across the three countries and of progress in the direction of EU15 in key health policy and outcome characteristics. These patterns are explained partly by differing starting points and partly by political and economic factors over the 1992-2004 period.

The voice of society in healthcare politics in Latvia

SHS Web of Conferences

It is impossible to imagine contemporary democracy without society participation in the process of developing regulations and implementation of changes that have a significant impact on society. The opinion of the society is represented by social communities, interest groups, and other non-governmental organizations, which unite people with similar views and ideas and serves as a representative of common opinion to government. The principles of good governance demand cooperation and collaboration with society in all phases of developing, implementing and assessing changes in any policy. The article represents the research on evaluation of cooperation and collaboration practice, as well as an assessment of used lobbying strategies and evaluation of their results in Healthcare politics in Latvia. The research is based on in-depth interviews with the representative of main actors presenting the NGO sector, as well as the representatives of the Ministry of Welfare. The research results ...