About us

The Institute of Health Information and Statistics of the Czech Republic (“IHIS CR“ or “the Institute“) was founded in 1960. The Institute is an organisational unit of the state and has been established by the Ministry of Health of the Czech Republic.

The National Health Information System (“NHIS“) is defined in § 70 par. 1 of the Act No. 372/2011 Coll., on Health Services and Conditions of Their Provision (Act on Health Services). In compliance with § 70 par. 3 of this Act, the administration of NHIS has been delegated to the Institute.

When processing personal data in the NHIS, the Institute proceeds in accordance with Regulation (EU) 2016/679 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 27 April 2016 on the protection of natural persons with regard to the processing of personal data and on the free movement of such data, and repealing Directive 95/46/EC (General Data Protection Regulation). The Institute does not provide personal data from the NHIS to any other subjects, except for cases explicitly stated by the legislation (such as § 8 par. 5 of the Act No. 141/1961 Coll., on Criminal Court Proceedings, the so-called Criminal Code).

As an organisational unit of the state delegated by the Ministry of Health of the Czech Republic, the Institute is a component of the National Statistical Service and performs this activity according to Act No. 89/1995 Coll., on the National Statistical Service, as subsequently amended. The Institute cooperates with organs of National Statistical Service, mainly with the Czech Statistical Office, provides connection between the NHIS and individual healthcare providers, and cooperates with providers of information systems run by other organisations in the healthcare sector and beyond it.

The Institute follows the principles of the European Statistics Code of Practice, which represents a common summary of European standards designated for statistical organs and for the whole European statistical system with the aim to secure high quality and credibility of European data. These principles concern, among other things, professional independence, confidentiality protection, reliability of the data and their precision, timeliness, punctuality, accessibility, intelligibility, clarity, comparability and consistency.

The Institute cooperates with associations of hospitals, expert medical societies, associations of physicians, health insurance companies and other organisations in order to make the NHIS contents more accurate and to utilise the collected data.

In terms of health statistics at the international level, the Institute cooperates with the WHO, OECD, UN, EUROSTAT and other organisations. Based on data from the NHIS, the Institute submits official health statistics from the Czech Republic.