Health inequality in Slovenia.

The aim of this study was to correlate some socio-economic factors (gender, income, education, social position) with some health indicators (life expectancy, death rate by selected causes of death, self-evaluation of one's own health, absence from work due to illness or injuries) with a purpose to define the ineqaulity in health across Slovenian municipalities. In our study two sources of data for the population of Slovenia in 1996 were used: from the Statistical Office of the Republic of Slovenia (aggregated data across Slovenian municipalities) and Public Opinion Research (individual data). Statistical analysis was performed by correlation and factor analysis. The correlation coefficient between education and life expectancy is 0.712. The correlation between income base and life expectancy is also significant (0.707). In the eastern part of the country (mostly rural population) women in average live 2 years and men 3 years less than their counterparts in the western part of the country. Five causes of death across Slovenian municipalities are significantly related to the population's education and incomes, of which only death due to neoplasm is positively correlated to income while all other causes are negatively correlated not only with income but also with education. Health (self-evaluation) is closely related to an individual's education and social position. The factor analysis of pressures at work showed groups of two factors as being the most significant: pressures related to leadership positions (positive correlation with health), and physical labour or work in inferior positions (negative correlation with health). We can conclude that the results of our study showed the crucial effect of investigated socio-economic factors on people's health across Slovenian municipalities. During the present socio-economic transition period we are trying to establish new sources of data and looking for possibilities to connect and refine them for further investigation.

"Hello, I need your help!"--the Lifeline community alarm system for home care.

In many countries, homes for the elderly are filled to capacity. New technologies and technical solutions are available, which support endeavours to care for vulnerable people in a community. Home care enables those people to stay in their homes as long as possible. So-called "safety alarm systems"--special technical aids based on a telephone unit enable immediate contact between a caller and a caregiver. The systems are designed to enable people to call for help even if they cannot reach the telephone. The calls are directed to a community control centre, which is a headquarters for home-based care in a community. It is staffed for 24-hours a day accepting calls and arranging or providing adequate help. The Lifeline system is described which enables an increased independence to the system users and provides them with security and reassurance. The system is adaptive to suit requirements of smaller or larger communities.

The community social alarm service as a primary health care service.

The history of calls to the community social alarm centre in Ljubljana and the service subscribers' records were analysed with the aim of finding out how the service helps in emergencies when calls related to health problems are received. The network, being a pilot project in Slovenia, was established in 1992 primarily to offer social services to elderly and disabled people living in their own home environments. The article highlights the role of the network in solving the medical problems of the users of the system. Among the 18,500 calls received in four years at the centre, 395 (2.1%) of them were health-related. An additional 24 emergency calls (0.2%) were received from non-subscribers to the centre using an "ordinary" telephone. Although the absolute number of health-related calls is low, the network plays an important role in preventive primary health care aimed at the observed population groups. The network meets most of the specific technical and organisational requirements for a community health care emergency call system. From a telematic point of view it is important that a telematic device--an emergency call unit--has entered an elderly or disabled person's home and been well accepted.

Bed utilization performances of Slovenian and Croatian acute hospitals systems.

With Barber-Johnson-Yates scattergrams (BJYS), the performances of Slovenian and Croatian acute hospital system were explored by taking turnover interval as a predictor variable, length of stay as a dependent variable, and by looking at the variables of bed throughput and percentage of bed emptiness on installed network. The growing influences on the Slovenian hospital system of a cost-containment policy and of the past war on the Croatian hospital system are the best illustrations of the informatics potential inherent in BJYS presentations for the exploratory data analysis (EDA) used to identify systematic relations between variables in a setting of not complete a priori expectations of these relations.

Could the community social alarm system serve also as a primary health care service?

The history of calls to the first community social alarm centre in Ljubljana and the service subscribers records were analysed with the aim of finding out how the service helps in emergencies when calls related to health problems are received. The network, being a pilot project in Slovenia, was established in 1992 primarily to offer social services to elderly and disabled people living in their own home environments. The article highlights the role of the network in solving the medical problems of the users of the system. Among the 18,500 calls received in four years at the centre, 395 (2.1%) of them were health-related. An additional 24 emergency calls (0.2%) of them were received from non-subscribers to the centre using an "ordinary" telephone. Although the absolute number of health-related calls is low, the network plays an important role in preventive primary health care aimed at the observed population groups. The network meets most of the specific technical and organisational requirements for a community health care emergency call system. The described system suitability and low percentage of calls related to health problems suggest that there is no need for two parallel call systems: one to cover social and the other one to fulfil emergency calls for medical help to elderly and disabled at their homes. From a telematic point of view it is important that a telematic device--an emergency call unit--has entered an elderly or disabled person's home and been accepted. The unit could be a basic communication device for different telemedical applications.

Alternative medicine in Slovenia: some social-medical views.

This article analyses the viewpoints of doctors, patients and the state of the phenomenon of unconventional methods of treatment/alternative medicine in Slovenia. The doctors' view-points are taken from the official documents of the Medical Chamber of Slovenia and the Slovene Medical Association. The patients' viewpoints are established on the basis of public opinion and epidemiological research, carried out in 1994 and 1996 on two representative samples of the Slovene population from the Celje area. The estimation of the attitude of the state is based on legislation and other regulations connected with alternative medicine. The findings of our analysis show a strongly negative attitude of doctors to any form of alternative medicine. In contrast, as many as half the patients express a favourable opinion on alternative methods of treatment, and more than a third of them actually make use of them. From existing laws it is evident that the state in general does not deal with alternative medicine, except for possibilities in such cases when a doctor or some other healthcare professional uses alternative (non-verified) methods of treatment. Alternative medicine is, from the point of view of social medicine, a phenomenon that should be followed, analysed and controlled. Dangerous as well as protective factors which accompany the execution of alternative methods should be recognised so as to be able to inform the public of the results in a timely and accurate manner. Because of the need for the legal and healthcare security of Slovene citizens, the state should regulate existing unconventional treatments.

Community social alarm network in Slovenia.

The article deals with a case report on the technology transfer of the Lifeline community social alarm system to Slovenia. The main reason the project was initiated is the ageing of the Slovenian population (11% of the population is 65 or over). With this system we intend to support the public's wish to allow the elderly to remain in their own homes for as long as possible instead of placing them in institutional care. Between 1992 and 1995 the following results were achieved: the acceptability of the system in the social environment was increased; a pilot control centre in Ljubljana was established and has been operational for two-and-a-half years; a national dissemination plan was prepared; the integration of the programme into other information systems has been started. One of the main conclusions is that for the successful transfer of a technology which also affects social values in society, a social innovation must support the process.

Caring network based on community social alarm centers in Slovenia: a country in transition.

Elderly, disabled, and sick people should be assisted to remain living in their own homes for as long as possible--this is a generally accepted philosophy of modern societies. A caring network based on community social alarms can significantly improve home-based care coordination, its efficiency, and quality. According to long-term experiences in some developed European countries, this has multifold positive influences on the society. Promising results have encouraged the implementation of such a system in Slovenia--a young mid-european country in transition, where restrictive governmental economic policy also influences social and medical standards that were agreed to under the former socialistic government. In Ljubljana--the capital of Slovenia with 250,000 inhabitants--the first community social alarm center was established in 1992. Based on two years of experience, a national plan for several regional centers, covering the whole country, was prepared. The government should provide a telecommunication infrastructure, but the local authorities and formal service providers should establish local conditions for its implementation. The project has been seeking to obtain its legitimacy as a governmental project.