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“Almost every health-care provider in the Czech Republic uses a computerized information system to charge the health insurance funds for goods and services provided. Due to their structure (and also to legal considerations), however, these data are largely unsuitable for uses other than reimbursement, such as health economic analysis or disease management.

“Data for health policy and research purposes are collected, instead, by the Czech Institute of Health Information and Statistics (Ústav zdravotnických informací a statistiky, ÚZIS), which was founded in 1960 by the Ministry of Health. The main task of the ÚZIS is to manage and refine the National Health Information System (NHIS). The functions of the NHIS include collecting and processing information concerning health status and health care; managing national health registries; and providing information for health research purposes while ensuring compliance with data privacy laws. All healthcare providers are required to send data reports to the ÚZIS on an annual or semi-annual basis. The reports include service volumes, basic economic data and also information about available human and physical resources. The NHIS maintains 10 registries, including the National Oncological Registry, the National Registry of Congenital Malformations and the National Registry of Hospitalized Patients.”

Source: Alexa J, Rečka L, Votápková J, van Ginneken E, Spranger A, Wittenbecher F. Czech Republic: Health system review. Health Systems in Transition, 2015; 17(1):1–165.

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“In 2012 the Ministry of Health announced a plan to implement a national e-Health system setting up data standards in Czech health care (to achieve so-called “Economical and Effective Electronic Healthcare”) and enabling providers to share data as well as providing aggregated data for policy-making. However, the necessary EU funding has been denied as yet and the fate of the project is uncertain. The health insurance funds tried to develop their own eHealth capabilities, but so far the majority of projects have failed to reach a significant share of the population.

“In fact, the lack of data exchange between different stakeholders in the Czech health-care system (for example, between providers and funds or between different public entities) is frequently criticized (OECD, 2014b). Strengthening of data collection capacities is included in the Health 2020 strategy.”

Source: Alexa J, Rečka L, Votápková J, van Ginneken E, Spranger A, Wittenbecher F. Czech Republic: Health system review. Health Systems in Transition, 2015; 17(1):1–165.

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World Health Systems Facts is a project of the Real Reporting Foundation. We provide reliable statistics and other data from authoritative sources regarding health systems in the US and sixteen other nations.

Page last updated July 28, 2023 by Doug McVay, Editor.