The 2015 emergency care reform in Poland: Some improvements, some unmet demands and some looming conflicts.

Between 2006 and 2015, the Act on the State Emergency Medical System was the key act governing the organization, financing and provision of emergency care in Poland. From the moment it entered into force, it had been heavily criticized. The critique focused, among others, on the lack of provisions allowing for emergency medical services (EMS) to be performed outside the EMS units, the lack of a separate Act regulating the profession of a medical rescuer and the lack of a separate professional organization representing medical rescuers.

Implementation of the cross-border healthcare directive in Poland: How not to encourage patients to seek care abroad?

In October 2014, after over 12 months of delay, Poland finally implemented directive 2011/24/EU on the application of patients' rights in cross-border healthcare. The implementing legislation in the area of cost reimbursement and prior authorization is very restrictive. The goal is to either defer the public payer's expenses into the future or to discourage patients from seeking care abroad or from seeking care altogether.

The 2014 primary health care reform in Poland: Short-term fixes instead of a long-term strategy.

At the end of 2013, the Minister of Health started legislative changes directly and indirectly affecting primary health care (PHC). The reforms were widely criticised among certain groups of medical professionals, including family medicine physicians. The latter mainly criticised the formal inclusion of specialists in internal diseases and paediatrics into PHC within the statutory health care system, which in practice meant that these two groups of specialists were no longer required to specialize in family medicine from 2017 in order to enter into contracts with the public payer and would be able to set up solo PHC practices-something over which family medicine physicians used to have a monopoly.

Institutional analysis of health promotion for older people in Europe - concept and research tool.

Background: European societies are ageing rapidly and thus health promotion for older people (HP4OP) is becoming an increasingly relevant issue. Crucial here is not only the clinical aspect of health promotion but also its organisational and institutional dimension. The latter has been relatively neglected in research on HP4OP.

Implementation of the 2011 Reimbursement Act in Poland: Desired and undesired effects of the changes in reimbursement policy.

The Act of 12 May 2011 on the Reimbursement of Medicines, Foodstuffs Intended for Particular Nutritional Uses and Medical Devices constitutes a major change of the reimbursement policy in Poland. The main aims of this Act were to rationalize the reimbursement policy and to reduce spending on reimbursed drugs. The Act seems to have met these goals: reimbursement policy (including pricing of reimbursed drugs) was overhauled and the expenditure of the National Health Fund on reimbursed drugs saw a significant decrease in the year following the Act's introduction.

The first attempt to create a national strategy for reducing waiting times in Poland: will it succeed?

The waiting lists package, proposed in March 2014, is the first attempt to create a national strategy to reduce waiting times for specialist care in Poland. The policy proposes a number of measures directed at primary, specialist ambulatory and hospital care with the goal of shifting patients to the lowest possible level of care. Initially, it has been welcomed by the patients and there has been, so far, no strong opposition against the reform from other stakeholders.