Overview

Czechia’s health system provides virtually universal membership and a broad benefits package. Stewardship and the health system policy process are vested at the national level, with the Czech Parliament responsible for legislation and the Ministry of Health, and subordinate agencies, responsible for regulatory, supervisory and to a certain degree the ownership roles. Health expenditure amounted to 7.8% of GDP in 2019, or US$ (PPP) 3477 per capita, which is below the respective EU averages for that year. In the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic, current health expenditure jumped to 9.2% of GDP. Spending on health from public sources accounted for 81.5% of the total in 2019, which is one of the highest levels of public financing in the WHO European Region.

Although the COVID-19 pandemic highlighted the necessity to further strengthen public health efforts, other challenges such as the sustainability of health financing, improvements to care provision and addressing health workforce shortages had been the subject of reform measures since before the onset of the pandemic in 2020. Recent reforms in the form of eHealth for pharmaceutical records and history, as well as electronic prescriptions, are also areas of focus with potential to contribute to the health system’s efficiency goals in the coming years.