The Health Ministry is trying to reduce waiting times in hospitals to "acceptable time frames", is how Health Minister Milojka Celarc Kolar put it. The pilot project will be implemented in three Slovenian hospitals, and that in Celje, Izola and the Valdoltra orthopeadic clinic, as well as at the Koper, Izola, Piran and Celje health centers. The project is to give answers on how to deal with the issue of waiting times most efficiently. Waiting times represent one of the biggest problems in Slovenia's health system.

The ministry will start collecting data on actual waiting times and then clean and analyze the lists. By the end of June next year joint solutions and models will be prepared and will apply for all hospitals. Doctors from nearby health centers will also be included in the project.

The hospitals chosen for the implementation of the project were selected for their particularities. The Celje hospital is regarded as relatively big and is also visited by patients from other regions. Those seeking treatment at the Izola hospital also include holidaymakers, who cause an additional burden to the health system. And the hospital in Valdoltra is a specialist hospital for orthopeadics.

The best to be rewarded
The head of the Directorate for Healthcare Economics, Tomaž Glažar, said the aim of the project was for those offering services to start appropriately managing their waiting lists for operations or diagnostics in practice. The main reason behind that is to ensure an honest and equal treatment of patients.

Those offering health services, which will manage to control their waiting times, will also be rewarded. How they will be rewarded is yet to be discussed. However, they will not be allowed to reduce waiting lists by redirecting patients to other institutions or to the country's two medical centers where most patients often end up, unless they have a referral for treatment abroad.

Gregor Cerar, MMC;
translated by K. J.