Health policy programs realised in Poland in 2016-2017

Health Policy Program (Program Polityki Zdrowotnej – PPZ) is a state policy tool for engaging local government units into the mechanism of granting provision of health services. Authors show areas in which self-governments most often took preventive health care actions and describe legislative changes in the Act on provision of health services.

The aim of the article is to quantitative and qualitative statement of PPZ prepared in Poland in 2016 and 2017, as well as presenting changing legal situation in the scope of evaluation of these projects.

Authors use descriptive method, presenting changes of legal status. The article includes data available in the Bulletin of Public Information by The Agency for Health Technology Assessment. 590 programs were analyzed (239 from 2016 and 351 from 2017).

In 2016 – 67% of submitted programs were given a positive opinion and in 2017 – 71%. The most of positively evaluated PPZ submitted by local government units (53% in 2016; 47% in 2017) referred to prevention of infectious diseases by vaccines. On the basis of analyses conducted, significant differences were observed in the implementation of the PPZ in various regions of Poland.

In the recent years a big improvement in the quality of planned self-government health programs is observed. It is suggested that due to the regulation defining the model of the health policy program and the model of the final report, this trend will continue.