Czech Minister Drops Plan for Compulsory Health Books - Paper
Posted on: Thursday, 25 August 2005, 09:00 CDT
Text of report in English by Czech news agency CTK
Prague, 25 August: Health Minister Milada Emmerova has given up efforts to introduce compulsory health books as she failed to persuade her colleagues in the cabinet about the step's positive effect, the daily Lidove noviny says today.
Emmerova (Social Democrats, CSSD) has deleted the relevant provision from the health insurance bill which is being prepared.
Neither doctors nor patients will be obliged to use health books, the paper writes.
By introducing health books, Emmerova wanted to reduce the spending on medicaments, on which as many as 55bn crowns were spent in the Czech Republic last year alone.
Practically all ministries opposed health books, mainly their proposed paper version, in the discussion which preceded the bill's completion. They said that health books could be meaningful only as e-books or Internet or chip cards.
A majority of doctors and self-governing regions are of the same view. The personal data protection office, too, is opposed to health books introduction.
Emmerova repeatedly defended her plan, pointing to the possible quick introduction of paper health books and the easy access to their contents, mainly by elderly people who are unable to handle a computer.
Finally she gave in to the plan's critics, Lidove noviny writes.
Nevertheless, the ministry is going to launch the planned test of the books' introduction in selected districts as of September. The books will be provided to about 100,000 patients, mainly elderly people and long-time patients and those who are frequently ill.
Emmerova says that in Slovakia the books' introduction has lowered the spending on medicines by one-third. She says that doctors prescribe unnecessary much medicine, which, she believes, the health books could positively regulate.
Paper health books would be the first step in this direction, and might be later followed by the introduction of patients' Internet health cards, the paper says, citing Emmerova.
Source: BBC Monitoring European
Related Articles
- 'Meaningful Connections' Offers Guidance, Case Examples for use of Electronic Health IT to Support Patient Centered Medical Home
- Patient Says N.L. Health Board Didn't Tell Her Test Result Was Wrong
- TB Patient Says Doctors Knew of Travel Plans
- AUDIO From Medialink and Cisco Systems: Patients Challenging Doctors to Take Full Advantage of Web
- Consumer Reports Survey: Patients and Doctors Disagree on Some Essential Issues
- Christiana Care Health System Adopts Interactive Patient Care Services
- Scripps Health Selects TeleTracking for Patient Flow Services
- Patients and Doctors Join Governor Schwarzenegger and U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein at UCLA Today to Call for Passage of Federal Legislation That Bans Cloning but Supports Stem Cell Research
- Health Care Reform Vital, Expert Says: ; Doctor is Set to Talk About the Issue With
- Out-of-Hours Service Endangering Patients, Say Doctors
 |
 |
User Comments (0)
RSS Feeds