Paper/Speech Details of Conference Program for the 16th NISPAcee Annual Conference Program Overview Panel Session on Health Policies and their Implementation Author(s) Zuzana Kotherová Charles University Prague Czech Republic ZUZANA DARMOPILOVÁ, JIŘÍ ŠPALEK Title Brokering health policy: The case of Czech Republic healthcare reform File Paper files are available only for conference participants, please login first. Presenter Abstract With respect to an experience from a healthcare reform process in the Czech Republic, the authors (corresponding to similar views of other authors) assume failing healthcare reforms to be explained by studying the roles and positions of key interest groups (healthcare providers, insurance funds, pharmaceutical industry, etc.) in the healthcare sector. From this point of view, a successful reform policy has to take into consideration not only objective concepts (such as need, access, quality and/or cost-control) but also the level of satisfaction of each key interest group involved in the service delivery. The role for government (Ministry of Health) we found in brokering between disconnected interests of these groups. In this respect, the aim of the paper is (1) to reveal economic interests of the principal Czech healthcare sector actors, (2) to derive methodology for establishing Health Policy Network and views of consequent influence. The paper therefore brings about to further research, particularly on developing the health policy network in Czech Republic and its subsequent analysis. The network could be generated via combining two tools – (i) interviewing health policy elites for their ranking of “most influential interest groups” in Czech Republic, and (ii) detailed analysis of recent healthcare strategies in the Czech Republic and manifested reactions of interested groups.
