Healthcare Overview in the Slovak Republic and Implementation of Predictive, Preventive and Personalized Medicine

Abstract

Healthcare system in the Slovak Republic is neither Bismarck nor Beveridge nor National Health Insurance model, although it has certain features of all. The healthcare contributions are mandatory and are paid to the health insurance company. Almost 100% solidarity is implemented in the system. Virtually, an insured citizen is not limited as for the amount of the healthcare spending per period of time but the reimbursement limits are set for the particular healthcare providers. In total, there are over 13,500 registered healthcare providers in the Slovak Republic. Public healthcare expenditure has been approximately 3,462 millions € in 2010, which represents around 5.27% of gross domestic product. Another 1,000 million € in cash is estimated to be spent on health-related products and services. In total, around 7% of gross domestic product is spent in healthcare. On the basis of the statistical data, around 78% of the 5.4 million population may be regarded to as relatively healthy, or having no apparent health problems. The 22% of the population suffer of the most common diseases such as cardiovascular diseases, diabetes, respiratory diseases, psychiatric diseases, infectious diseases and cancer. Tools for fulfilling the goals of The National Health Promotion Program include early prediction, prevention, and education, which is in a good agreement with the concept of predictive, preventive and personalized medicine. Although the contacts between EPMA and the Ministry of Healthcare of the Slovak Republic have been established in order to actively initiate the changes needed, and certain political support has been declared, the real implementation still remains a question of the particular effort at all levels of healthcare. According to the response received at conferences and expert meetings held in Slovakia, new philosophy of predictive, preventive and personalized medicine is progressively attracting attention from the medical experts and experts from related fields.