New digital service for assessing primary healthcare accessibility in Slovenia

Purpose Primary healthcare is the cornerstone of population health, and Slovenia’s publicly funded system envisions every individual having a personal primary care physician. However, despite media reports on service availability issues, citizens often struggle to access and interpret relevant data, limiting their engagement in health policy. Methods The “Zdravniki Sledilnik” portal (https://zdravniki.sledilnik.org) is a publicly available resource that helps citizens locate a personal primary care physician. Building on the success of its map-based interface—designed to help users find physicians still accepting new patients—we harnessed the available data to provide a comprehensive overview of Slovenia’s primary care network. A dynamic, colorful dashboard was developed to display the key performance indicators of primary care. ResultsOur work produced four interactive charts: one chart compares the number of patients entitled to a personal physician with those who doesn’t have one; another displays a country map highlighting areas with low primary care coverage; a third line chart identifies age groups at risk; and a fourth chart compares the performance of concessionaires (private providers who are part of the public system - have a contract with the National health insurance company) with publicly owned community health care centers. Conclusion This interactive visualization enhances the understanding of primary care network performance for all participants. It empowers citizens to critically engage with health information and supports the formulation of data-driven policies to further improve the healthcare system.