FORMATION OF CLUSTERS OF MEDICAL INSTITUTIONS AS AN ADMINISTRATIVE TOOL OF MANAGEMENT IN THE INDUSTRY OF HEALTH CARE IN THE CONDITIONS OF DECENTRALIZATION

Abstract

The health care management system involves the application of administrative methods of managing medical facilities, which are a tool of state regulation in the field of health care. The transformation of the health care system through medical reform is aimed at providing citizens of Ukraine with equal access to quality medical services and reorienting the system so that the patient is at its center. The article examines the management of health care institutions in the process of reform, finds out the relevant issues of the infrastructural stage of the medical reform and the effective functioning of medical institutions in conditions of decentralization. Attention is focused on the transformation of the health care system in the form of the formation of clusters of medical institutions, which is proposed by the Ministry of Health of Ukraine and aims to improve the quality and availability of medical care through the creation of a new network of medical institutions in accordance with the principle of hospital districts. The structure of the cluster distribution of medical institutions within the framework of the medical reform and the characteristics of a capable network of medical institutions in the Odesa region are considered. The significance of the division of territories into hospital clusters in the process of balancing the advantages and disadvantages of decentralization and the maximum approximation to the modern European system of providing medical care is emphasized. A promising direction of further research on this issue is to solve the problem of «community hospitals», which are not included in the capable network of the hospital district (region) and, due to uncertainty, create a risk of reducing the availability and quality of medical care for residents of territorial communities.