Abstract
As in many countries, public health-care sector represents a very important subsystem of Croatian general government sector and a very important segment of total public spending. The specificities of Croatian public health-care sector refer to its financing model and asset structure, but mostly to large material and human resources, employment needs and service delivery model/set of procedure complexity. From a health-care financial management macroeconomic point of view, hospitals’ spending represents the most demanding and the most expensive segment, while cost-efficiency and effectiveness of hospitals reflect the overall health-care system quality. This implies management efficiency and effectiveness that further require necessary quality, accuracy and complete set of both financial information (which would reflect true and fair view of organization’s financial position and performance) and nonfinancial information (which would further indicate the effectiveness level). In addition, Croatian public health system has been a subject to frequent reforms and almost permanent financial recoveries of piled incurred losses.
The paper presents empirical evidence on the current state and functional adequacy of the accounting and financial reporting system as well as the evidence on the perception about the accounting information quality level in meeting Croatian public sector health-care management needs. The empirical research was conducted based on the data collected by means of questionnaire sent to all public health-care institutions in Croatia in the year 2016.
The results of this study have relevance to all users of financial statements and in particular to accounting professions engaged in public sector accounting information system set of reforms, in their effort to upgrade and advance the existing financial reporting system by implementing accruals in public sector health-care accounting/financial reporting system as business-like (parts of) government. Such a system should insure the integral information base that would enable efficient use of public goods and the existence of accountable financial management.
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Notes
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Interpreting the comparison of research results and in particular significant differences in some of the results must take into account the following:– The distance between the research is 10 years.– Implementation of reporting system that is the subject matter began in 2002 and the steady growing acceptance of the new system with the passage of time.– The period of the first survey was accompanied by high insolvency system and the inclusion of the health insurance system of the treasury and restrictive financing through the reduction of hospital limits—resistance to changes caused by other factors/outside accounting.– The period of the second survey monitored rehabilitation programme in health care and off CIHI from the treasury system– The survey is based on the attitudes, and perceptions of respondents are not matched with the institutions or persons who responded to the survey.
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Acknowledgement
This paper is a result of Croatian Science Foundation’s funding of the project 8509 Accounting and financial reporting reform as a means for strengthening the development of efficient public sector financial management in Croatia. Any opinions, findings and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Croatian Science Foundation.
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Vašiček, D., Roje, G., Dražić Lutilsky, I. (2018). Accounting System in Croatian Public Health-Care Sector: Current State and Improvement Perspectives. In: Karasavvoglou, A., Goić, S., Polychronidou, P., Delias, P. (eds) Economy, Finance and Business in Southeastern and Central Europe. Springer Proceedings in Business and Economics. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-70377-0_31
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