Free and occupied beds in one place. The Sejm passed a law on a central system for monitoring hospital resources.
The Sejm has passed a law establishing a central system for monitoring hospital resources – the Service Provider Potential Register (EPS). The new system will enable ongoing monitoring of the availability of hospital beds, medical personnel, medications, and blood at individual facilities.
The project, prepared by the Ministry of Health, amends the Act on the Healthcare Information System and the Act on Population Protection and Civil Defense. The goal is to create a modern, central IT system that will enable real-time monitoring of hospital resources—from the number of beds and staff, to key medical devices, personal protective equipment, medical gases, and blood and its components.
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The project's justification emphasizes that the EPS will enable rapid notification of limitations in the availability of healthcare services, for example, in situations caused by force majeure. The system will also enable State Emergency Medical Services units to automatically report requests for hospital beds. Data will be obtained directly from the IT systems of medical facilities.
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According to the Ministry of Health, the implementation of the new solution will improve the organization of pre-hospital care, reduce the number of admission refusals in hospital emergency departments and admission rooms, and reduce the need to transport patients between hospitals. It will also facilitate the management of healthcare resources during crises such as pandemics, natural disasters, or military situations.
The EPS system is also intended to improve data reporting – especially in emergency situations – and will be used by, among others, the Ministry of National Defence .
"The COVID-19 pandemic, caused by the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus, has demonstrated the low quality and effectiveness of data reporting by healthcare providers regarding resources directly related to the ability to provide healthcare services, essential for the Minister of Health to make quick decisions and respond based on current data in a crisis. Much of the data was transmitted by service providers by phone or email using docx, pdf, or xlsx documents," the justification for the bill reads.
The Ministry of Health explains that data was entered manually, and in some areas, several times a day due to the need to update reported data. This, in turn, overloaded staff to the point that new staff had to be hired or Territorial Defense Force soldiers had to be sent to hospitals.
The bill sparked some controversy, with questions about whether patients would be monitored.
During the October debate in the Sejm, Deputy Minister of Health Tomasz Maciejewski clearly dispelled concerns about privacy protection.
This system does not collect sensitive patient data at all, it only collects data about things in hospitals, e.g. medical equipment and beds, Maciejewski emphasized.
He emphasized that the purpose of the EPS is not to track treatment histories or patient personal data, but to optimize the use of healthcare resources . In practice, this is intended to prevent situations in which patients are transferred from one hospital to another due to a lack of beds.
According to the Act, the Minister of Health will be the data controller in the system. The data, as stated, constitutes a legally protected secret and is not subject to disclosure or transfer for reuse.
The legislative process has not yet been completed, but the act is scheduled to enter into force on January 1, 2027.
Source: PAP/sko Updated: 10/11/2025 17:17
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