Issues in the improvement of healthcare services in five countries of the European Union

Quality of health care services is very sensitive theme, which is interesting not only for health care services providers, bud also for general public as a recipient of paid health care services, with purpose to protect the most important treasure of all of us - our health. This paper presents, the theoretical and empirical research knowledge, critical factors of success, critical processes and objectives for improvement in health care organizations services in five EU countries. The basis is the current theoretical and practical knowledge as to the improvement of the services of health care organizations gained from professional literature. The main body is comprised of questionnaire research from health care organizations and pertinent personal interviews with doctors and managers of selected organizations with primary and secondary care, and hospitals. After a qualitative and quantitative processing of the questionnaire research, and from the results of the pertinent interviews, it was discovered that the critical factors of success are, despite the varied levels of services offered, the same in the participant states: legislation, system of management and creation of resources. Determining the concrete critical processes and objectives for improvement must be consistently individual, up to the level of the individual health care organizations and basic healthcare organizations social groups - healthcare microsystems. Accumulation and exploitation of digital health care capital: data, information, and the knowledge of medicinal, managerial, and facilitating processes can be considered as a significant potential for improvement of the quality, efficiency and effectiveness of health care organizations.