Advanced tools for health needs analysis available online

Information regarding primary health care, hospital treatment and available drug programmes, among others, can be found on the online platform of the Ministry of Health – in the Database of System and Implementation Analyses. The Ministry of Health has just released interactive applications with health needs maps that will allow users to navigate the analyses more efficiently.

“So far, health needs maps has a form of thick volumes that were analysed only by the most ardent analysts of the health care system. Other audiences, however, found them too extensive and unintelligible. Recently, we have devoted lots of effort to change that and transform the maps into a useful, modern, interactive tool that can be used for health management by a diverse group of decision-makers, experts, and practitioners. Thus, we have made another step towards the computerisation in the health sector,” said Sławomir Gadomski, the Deputy Minister of Health, who has been supervising the health needs maps project for almost a year.

The Director of the Department of Analysis and Strategy of the Ministry of Health, Jakub Adamski, who manages the project “Maps of Health Needs – the Database of System and Implementation Analyses”, emphasises that the aim of the changes was to improve the intelligibility of the maps and enable easy and practical use by those interested.

“The issues described in the maps are often complex and multidimensional, so their analysis is facilitated by fast and modern data visualisation tools, which, at the same time, allow an interactive and user-friendly form of presentation. We have prepared over a dozen such tools, which cover equipment, human resources, and long-term care, so that the user can easily find the information they are looking for,” Adamski emphasised.

The applications have been made available on the Database of System and Implementation Analyses web platform and can be accessed without logging in – via the “Maps of Health Needs 2020” subpage. When the user opens the subpage, they will be able to see 19 icons depicting different scopes of analysis, such as primary health care, hospital treatment, and medical equipment. Clicking on a selected scope of services will redirect the user to the relevant application or report. This allows users to independently and easily view information of interest. At the top, there is a bar with tabs for individual analyses, while on the left side there is a box with filters that let the user select a specific range of presented data (year, voivodeship, diagnosis, medical personnel, etc.). It is also possible to download data in .xlsx or .csv format.

This year, the health department also expects to publish a new map of health needs, in a form different than before. The map covering both entire Poland and individual voivodeships will focus on cross-sectional conclusions and recommendations. It will be published as a report that will be accessible and targeted at a wide audience.

Most of the analyses, which are the basis for the future document, have already been made public. These include: primary health care, specialised outpatient care, hospital treatment, queues, drug programmes, selected hospital-acquired infections and their complications, psychiatric care and addiction treatment, rehabilitation, long-term care, palliative and hospice care, emergency medical services, medical personnel, beds and occupancy, and medical equipment.

More applications will be released in the near future providing data on: demographics, epidemiology, epidemiological forecasts, and risk and prevention factors.

Check out the applications on the platform >>.