Croatia

Hrvatsko društvo za gerontologiju i gerijatriju Hrvatskog liječničkog zbora
Croatian Society for Gerontology and Geriatrics of the Croatian Medical Association

Some facts on demography and geriatrics in Croatia…

Total population: 4.284.889
Percentage above 65 Yr: 17.7%
Percentage above 80 Yr: 3.9%

Number of physicians: 14.464
Number of geriatricians: 6
Total number of hospital beds: 23.583
Number of geriatric beds: 240

Geriatrics is recognised as a...

  • speciality since 10-20 years
  • subspeciality since <10 years

Geriatric medicine is found in...

  • acute care hospitals as acute geriatric ward
  • out-patient care settings
  • nursing homes or long term care facilities
  • paliative geriatric medicine in homes for eldely

Members of the society

Total number of Members: 28
Geriatricians: 6
GP’s: 9
Internists: 3
Nurses: 1
Other therapists: 9

Other activities…

4th CROATIAN CONGRESS OF GERONTOLOGY AND GERIATRICS

The role of Center of Gerontology Institute of Public Health care for Croatian older people:

  • Follows, studies, evaluates, supervises, reports and plans projection of the future health needs and functional disabilities of the erderly for institutional and noninstitutional health care in the city of Zagreb and counties of Croatia through the Register of health needs and functional disabilities of elderly; Project GeroS/CEZIH- the main goal is to link the provision of gerontological health care at all three levels, from primary health care for the elderly in homes for the elderly with the use of geriatric nursing documentation for geriatric health care to the hospitalized geriatric insured on long-term treatment and to geronto dental services.
  • Offers professional and methodological help, coordinates, supervises and executes instruction and education for menagers of health protection of the elderly and follow up of health needs of geriatric insurers.
  • Actively participates in creation of Programs of health measures and procedures in health protection of the elderly, as well as Program of basic preventive health measures of primary, secondary and tertiary prevention of the elderly.
  • Actively participates and performs scientific-research and publicist gerontological activities.

GeroS – gerontologic public health indicators via e-system

On their initiative, the Reference Center for Health Care of the Elderly of the Ministry of Health of the Republic of Croatia, Department of Health Gerontology, Teaching Unit of Dr Andrija Štampar Institute of Public Health and the Croatian Health Insurance Fund have set their common goals in the field of computerization of the gerontologic and geriatric health care at all three health care levels, from primary health care for the elderly in old people's homes and geriatric nursing documentation on geriatric health care of geriatric insured persons to long-term treatment, gerontologic care providers and geriatric dental services, along with the system connection to CEZIH (Central Croatian Health Information System) via GeroS link. The ultimate goal of the project is computerization of the complete health care provided to the elderly and the geriatric patients irrespective of the ownership of the institutions where they are accommodated, as well as the gerontologic insured persons and geriatric patients on long-term treatment in hospitals, palliative geriatric and psychogeriatric care, in order to have all these data at one place, in the central health care system, integrating it with the CEZIH via GeroS. Computerization of geriatric health care will cover health care services provided at the three health care levels, from general/family medicine and geriatric health care at old people's homes through long-term treatment of geriatric patients and visiting nursing services, home care and palliative geriatric care through services provided by Gerontologic Centers as extra-institutional care for geriatric insured persons, geriatric dental services and geriatric nursing services. All this information will be collected in GEROS, a central system for gerontology, where overall health care services provided to gerontologic and geriatric patients will be recorded. The system will be connected to CEZIH, while the most relevant health care segments will be recorded in the e-Card. This will make the whole health care system efficient, appropriate, accessible and properly regulated, along with evaluation of the health care provided to geriatric insured persons and rationality of the growing geriatric health care utilization.

Centers of Gerontology - Institute of Public Health and Gerontology Centers in Croatia

The gerontologic-public health service provided at primary health care level by the Centers of Gerontology of the Public Health Institutes (PHI) in particular Croatian counties, City of Zagreb and Republic of Croatia is based on the established gerontologic-public health parameters of health care needs and functional ability of the elderly in institutional and non-institutional health care. The measures of gerontologic-public health care have been legally defined by the Act on Amendments of the Act on Health Care, referring to the Plan and Program of Health Care Measures on National Health Insurance for Gerontologic-Public Health Service provided by gerontologic-public health care teams. Appropriate preventive gerontologic program of primary prevention for the elderly has also been performed by Gerontology Centers in local community, providing immediate gerontologic non-institutional care for the elderly. A comprehensive approach in health care of the elderly, with family medicine playing the leading role, is ensured by due coordination at the level of primary health care for the elderly as part of the gerontologic-public health service with a catchment population of 30,000 people older than 65.

Health care of the elderly cannot be performed, upgraded or evaluated for efficiency and availability unless the respective gerontologic-public health parameters on health care needs and functional ability of the elderly in institutional and non-institutional health care have been established. These very parameters make the basis of the gerontologic-public health service provided at primary health care level by the Centers of Gerontology at Institutes of Public Health in Croatian counties, City of Zagreb and Republic of Croatia. Appropriate programs of health care measures and procedures in health care of the elderly, including primary, secondary and tertiary prevention for the elderly, could only be developed based on monitoring and assessment of the health care needs of the elderly.

Such an appropriate preventive gerontologic program of primary prevention for the elderly has also been implemented by Gerontology Centers in local community, by providing immediate gerontologic non-institutional care for the elderly. The aim is to enable the elderly to stay at home, with the family, as long as possible. In these efforts, coordination with primary health care (PHC) professionals, i.e. selected family physicians providing care for geriatric insurees, is necessary. Based on their recommendation (PHC referral letter; Fig. 1), geriatric insurees would be justifiably relieved of unnecessary and time-consuming waiting in lines in waiting rooms for examination at PHC offices. This is confirmed by frequent visits of elderly insurees to the selected PHC office for some social and public health indication.

List of geriatric chairs and research centres in Croatia

Reference Centre for Health Care of the Elderly of the Ministry of Health of the Republic of Croatia, Center of Health Gerontology, Andrija Štampar Teaching Institute of Public Health, Mirogojska c. 16, 10 000, Zagreb, Croatia.

Contact details

The president of the Society:
Tajana Pavic

General Assembly member in the EUGMS:
Tajana Pavic

Email: tajana.pavic(at)gmail.com
Website: www.stampar.hr/gerontologija

News

no news in this list.