The best Slovak hospitals are located in central and eastern Slovakia.
The Institute for Economic and Social Reforms (INEKO) and Transparency International Slovakia have published the latest rankings of the best teaching and general hospitals in the country.
The military hospital in Ružomberok came first of eleven assessed teaching hospitals in Slovakia. F.D. Roosevelt Hospital in Banská Bystrica came second, and University Hospital in Martin ended up in third place. All are located in central Slovakia.
AGEL’s general hospital in Košice – Šaca tops the ranking of general hospitals, followed by hospitals in Stará Ľubovňa, eastern Slovakia, and Dolný Kubín, northern Slovakia. In total, 32 general hospitals are featured in the 2022 ranking.
INEKO used data from several sources, including the Health Ministry, health insurance companies, self-governing regions, and the National Health Information Centre, to create the rankings.
The rankings are based on data from the years 2018-2021.
Worst hospitals in Košice and Trebišov
In addition to the quality of provided health care, the organisations assessed the surgical experience of doctors, the difficulty of the cases hospitals dealt with, people’s opinions, transparency, and economic performance.
Though the Ružomberok military hospital came first of all teaching hospitals, its transparency and economic performance were the worst.
The most transparent teaching hospital in the country can be found in Banská Bystrica. The hospital topped the overall ranking last year. Though the satisfaction of patients with the hospital fell, the facility handled the most difficult diagnoses among all teaching hospitals, the latest ranking shows.
The worst teaching hospital is in Košice.
As for general hospitals, the hospital in Čadca, northern Slovakia, ended among the ten best hospitals after it recorded the biggest progress, up by 11 places. Conversely, the hospitals in Trebišov and Rožňava, eastern Slovakia, fell in the ranking of general hospitals and ended up at its bottom. INEKO described Rožňava Hospital as one of the most transparent ones in 2022, but the highest number of patients was dissatisfied with its services.
In 12th place, the general hospital in Michalovce, owned by Svet Zdravia, took in the highest number of patients whose diagnoses were the most difficult and expensive.
People’s satisfaction growing
As INEKO noted in the press release, the coronavirus pandemic negatively affected the provision of health care in hospitals. Planned surgeries were postponed, for example.
Nevertheless, patients’ satisfaction with health care has not suffered and keeps rising on a regular basis, INEKO head Dušan Zachar said.
The economic health of hospitals has also improved, which INEKO explains with the fact that hospitals continued to receive money from health insurance firms, but the number of medical procedures decreased due to the coronavirus. As a result, hospitals saved funds that they would have otherwise spent on medications, utility bills, and medical material.
However, state hospitals continued to increase their debt.
