Feeling sick? Where are the best hospitals in Croatia?
The most successful hospital among the largest Croatian hospital centres in the first six months of this year was Sestre Milosrdnica Clinical Hospital Centre, while the least successful was Dubrava Clinical Hospital, according to the latest rankings by the Croatian Institute for Health Insurance, reports Jutarnji List on August 15, 2015.
According to performance and quality of service indicators, Sestre Milosrdnica has increased the provision of medical services by 34 percent, facilities are occupied between 95 and 98 percent, and the number of operations, exams and patients has increased as well.
On the other hand, Dubrava Clinical Hospital has failed according to almost all the indicators of performance and quality of service, while the Split Clinical Hospital Centre significantly reduced occupancy rates.
In addition to Dubrava Clinical Hospital, the worst results were achieved by Osijek Clinical Hospital Centre, which has recorded a decrease in number of operations and treatments on an outpatient basis, while the length of the average patient stay in the hospital has increased. The remaining three large hospital centres – Zagreb, Rijeka and Merkur – have improved their operations.
In the second category of hospitals, the best results were achieved by Sveti Duh Clinical Hospital and Varaždin General Hospital, while the worst was Dubrovnik General Hospital.
The hospital in Požega is yet again leading among the hospitals in the third category, while general hospitals in Gospić and Zabok are at the bottom of the rankings.
Since occupancy rate in Split Clinical Hospital Centre has dropped by eight percent to 65.5 percent, the Ministry of Health does not exclude the possibility that the hospital will have to reduce the number of beds for acute patients.
One of the biggest surprises of the rankings is the bad score of Dubrava Clinical Hospital, which is the worst among the seven largest Croatian hospitals. In the last six months, that hospital has reduced its average occupancy rate, the number of operations and the number of cases treated on the outpatient basis, and at the same time extended the average length of hospitalization (from 6.9 to 7.3 days).
Speaking recently for RTL, health minister Siniša Varga did not rule out the possibility that the poor results in Dubrava are a consequence of political obstruction. The hospital manager Marko Banić explained away the results of his hospital speaking about “the specifics of external and internal factors affecting the operation of individual hospitals of the first category. Each of these institutions is in a unique position in relation to the catchment area in certain categories of activity. Consequently, all the hospitals have achieved progress, some larger and some smaller due to objective reasons.”
Since the announcement of previous rankings at the end of 2014, hospitals have increased their scores by 40 percent. Part of hospital revenues is now directly dependent on the number of services provided to patients, which can increase their budgets by five percent.
The rankings are made according to five parameters which measure the occupancy rates of hospital beds, number of patients per doctor, mortality rates, the percentage of treatment on an outpatient basis and the number of hospital infections.
