Life quality’s healthcare component in Romania: A new regional approach

Abstract

The quality of the healthcare system in Romania was and still is an important subject for many studies from different scientific research domains. The paper deals with the analysis of the healthcare system in Romania in the context of life quality’s improvement. The research is based on significant indicators: life expectancy, number of physicians, medical staff, hospital beds, aging population and mortality rates. For the beginning, a comparative analysis between EU average values and Romania leads to interesting conclusions. A distinct part of the paper is focused on healthcare system’s situation in Romania. The analysis is achieved on three levels: national, regional and local and follows four steps: a comparative analysis, a dispersion analysis in order to point out the regional disparities between the health care systems, a cluster analysis and forecasting procedures on medium term. The main conclusion of the paper is that the healthcare system in Romania is far from being well developed and presents great disparities between counties, represented by their capital cities and NUTS2 regions. In order to manage this situation, the regional cluster approach is the best solution. The whole analysis in the paper is based on the latest official statistic data and pertinent diagrams.