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In Bulgaria, a National Health Information System was launched, which started e-health care. The process covered all participants and main flows of information in the sector: - Electronic Health Record (patient file); - Electronic recipes (e-recipes); - Electronic directions (e-directions); This paper presents the results of a pilot study to create safety of obstetric care in e-health conditions. The aim of the study is to examine the opinion of working professionals providing obstetric care in conditions of e-health, increasing the safety of the processes. Methods and methodology: a survey was conducted among 106 medical specialists directly engaged in the activities of the hospital wards of Obstetrics and Gynecology Hospital Varna for the period January-March 2023. The results are processed and presented graphically. Results and discussion: more than half of the respondents (53.13% of medics and 51.35% of healthcare pro)fessionals) have difficulty working with a database. More than 60% believe that the work process is facilitated with the introduced amendments regarding the work with electronic file, compared to paper media. Aggravating factors for the workflows are the frequent change of requirements in the regulatory framework and the lack of clear regulations for content and requisites of the electronic file. In conclusion, with the rapid development of electronic forms of communication and information technologies are the basis of the most successful economic, administrative, health activities that support the processes of diag)nosis, treatment in hospital structures. They save time, resources, ensure patient safety and improve the quality of service when providing electronic peripheral sources. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The research is based on data for 43 non-financial enterprises listed on the Bulgarian Stock Exchange for the period 2018-2022. The results show a statistically significant positive relationship between the indicators of the trade credit policy and the term structure of the enterprises' debt in most years of the studied period. An indicator of the maturity structure of the debt in the study is the ratio Short-term debt/Total debt, and indicators of the trade credit policy of companies are the amount of receivables from customers and suppliers, the ratio Receivables from customers and suppliers/Short-term assets and the ratio Receivables from customers and suppliers/Total assets. This positive relationship is in accordance with the hypothesis of matching the maturities of the liabilities and the assets financed with them and reflects the desire of the companies to hedge the risk and reduce their costs on the borrowed resource. It is established that only in the first year of the Covid-19 pandemic in Bulgaria, there is no significant relationship between the trade credit policy and the maturity structure of the debt of public companies. The reasons for this are the sharp and unexpected deterioration of business conditions in the sectors affected by the pandemic, the strong increase in uncertainty, the disruption of supply chains and difficulties in accessing finance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The advanced (modern) health systems are based on the principles of solidarity, the right to choose and efficiency in spending the resources of the system. They have both social and economic characteristics. The role of public health resources in all developed countries is leading. The present paper examines the status and problems of public finance management. It is based on research realized in 2020. The research was conducted among health managers, university professors of health care management, health experts of Ministry of Health, National Health Insurance Fund, executive directors and managers of hospitals and laboratories, and other experts in the healthcare system. The authors investigate theirs positions about the changes in healthcare financing in Bulgaria. The aim of the study is to identify the main problems in public finance management in healthcare. The study shows that the Ministry of Health have to manage and finance some priority health activities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Employees are a key resource for each business. With the digital transformation going even more rapidly after the pandemic, there is a growing need for digital skills in various sectors. It should come as no surprise, as this seems to be relevant also to the Information and Communication Technology industry. Nowadays, there is a worldwide demand for Software Engineers, System Administrators, E-Commerce Developers and other tech professionals - roles that are vital even for companies that are not directly delivering technological solutions. 2022 started as a challenging year in terms of hiring technical talent and in Bulgaria, the situation is no different. For the last years, there has been a growth in the training and education of technology specialists, however, there is still a shortage on the market. Recruitment practices need to be optimized in accordance with the situation to develop more effective strategies for covering these shortages. The purpose of this paper is to shed light on the existing recruitment practices specifically in the Information and Communication Technology industry. In the article, the current state of the labour market is reviewed along with the corresponding strategies applied to respond to the market demands. Globalization advanced innovation in employee selection strategies and led companies to applyig creative approaches to staffing. Candidate sources are now fully digital and easily accessible, which promotes competition among businesses to hire the best specialists. Yet, this only seems to shrink the talen pool, as the gap between business needs and supply of technology professionals remains. The positive outcome of this research suggests that managers of technology companies would be able to build a customized recruitment framework for their specific needs and to successfully hire new employees. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Service Marketing is a relatively new discipline taught in recent years at the Bulgarian universities. Within the contact and the relationship with the service, people are experiencing „the moment of true”. Thus, they evaluate the quality of the offered service by the company or university. The aim of the author of this paper is to go deeply through the world of the chosen target group – marketing students at the university “Prof. D-r. Assen Zlatarov” in Burgas, Bulgaria. Thereby data was collected and transformed into an information about their needs, wants, expectations, interest and role in the context of the subject Service Marketing. The survey is limited to marketing students, Bachelor of Science, 4th year in summer semester 2019 at the university “Prof. D-r. Assen Zlatarov” in Burgas. Service Marketing is an elective class, chosen by the majority of students as an alternative to Product Marketing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Present paper is devoted to the youth entrepreneurship in the field of Creative Business trough the comparative analysis between situation in Bulgaria and Romania as member states of the European Union. For Creative Business the most important and key element is the creative idea – therefore it is possible that start-up company could equally compete with the company having global reputation and popularity. Our findings show that both countries have to develop special policy supporting focusing the youth entrepreneurship in the field of Creative Business. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper tries to provide both theoretical and empirical explanation of why population aging is often associated with deflationary processes nowadays. After a regression and correlation analysis of a data set for Bulgaria, it was found a correlation between some of the demography factors and low-frequency inflation which can easily transform into deflation. In particular, both the share of people at and over 65 ages to the total number of people and the average median age of the population are correlated with low inflation and even deflation. On the other hand, the number of live births is basically related with higher inflation rates. This can be explained by the effects of an increase in longevity and declined fertility rates. The two factors are a major premise for demographic shifts and thus decline in prices. The developed model covers 18 observations which mean that it could be said to be realistic, because it includes almost all available information for the specific period from the beginning of the new century up to nowadays, to be more accurate - from 2001 to 2018. Currently deflation seems to be one of the most dangerous threats for the economy generally and understanding what can cause it is a fundamental topic for the modern economists and politicians. The core challenge is to succeed managing it and thus to even prevent it. However, this could happen only if we know how deflation is created. Exactly, one of the ways deflation could occur in most of the developed countries including Bulgaria is by the above mentioned processes of increasing of longevity and decreasing of fertility rates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper studies from historic aspect Continuing Medical Education practices in European countries. Conducting continuing medical education is an important element in the implementation of national health policy. Training of health professionals is essential for ensuring the required medical services quality and its efficiency. It is emphasized that the lack of regulations in the coordination, terms and condition of conducting ongoing training and monitoring of these activities is a prerequisite for reducing medical services quality. It was concluded that in Bulgaria the system lacks tools for evaluation, coordination and monitoring of the quality of CME events, priority of professional organizations as established by Health Law and the Law on professional organizations. It is concluded that to conduct an effective continuing education is necessary to establish specific regulations. A number of documents, including the draft Law amending the Law on doctors' and dentists (LAS OF LPOPPDM) are discussed and analysed. As an example of the impact of professional qualification on quality of medical services some inspection results of the Executive Agency ''Medical audit“ in the field of pediatrics are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper studies from historic aspect Continuing Medical Education practices in European countries. Conducting continuing medical education is an important element in the implementation of national health policy. Training of health professionals is essential for ensuring the required medical services quality and its efficiency. It is emphasized that the lack of regulations in the coordination, terms and condition of conducting ongoing training and monitoring of these activities is a prerequisite for reducing medical services quality. It was concluded that in Bulgaria the system lacks tools for evaluation, coordination and monitoring of the quality of CME events, priority of professional organizations as established by Health Law and the Law on professional organizations. It is concluded that to conduct an effective continuing education is necessary to establish specific regulations. A number of documents, including the draft Law amending the Law on doctors' and dentists (LAS OF LPOPPDM) are discussed and analysed. As an example of the impact of professional qualification on quality of medical services some inspection results of the Executive Agency ''Medical audit“ in the field of paediatrics are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims at validating the measurement instruments of Logistics Service Quality (LSQ) Scale in Bulgarian courier sector. The objective of this paper is to explore by LSQ how customer satisfaction is generated. The theoretical model is tasted on data collected through an online questionnaire survey of 423 individual customers of courier services in Bulgaria. The findings demonstrate that courier service providers in Bulgaria can use LSQ scale to understand better the expectations and perceptions of the customers. The study also found that LSQ should be conceptualized as a process, rather than merely as a single concept or secondorder construct [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the summer of 1908 political changes occurred in The Ottoman Empire, marked by the actions of the young Turkish committee “Unity and progress”. Taking advantage of the internal instability in the empire, the rulers of the Principality of Bulgaria raised the question of whether it was the right time to reject the vassalage of the Ottoman Sultan. A central role in the realization of the idea of declaring Bulgarian independence was played by the diplomatic representative of the Principality in Constantinople - Ivan Stefanov Geshov, the Bulgarian Prime Minister Alexander Malinov, the Foreign Minister Stefan Paprikov and the Bulgarian ruler Knyaz Ferdinand I. The present statement aims to enlighten few essential moments of the history of Principality Bulgaria and The Ottoman Empire, namely the young Ottoman revolution of the summer of 1908, the incident "Geshov" and the recall of the diplomatic representative of Tsarigrad, the ensuing actions of the Bulgarian diplomacy and Knyaz Ferdinand led to the Proclamation of the Independence of the Principality of Bulgaria in the old capital Tarnovo. The basic scientific works on the topic was used for the needs of the investigation, published documents and materials of the Bulgarian press [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sharing economy or collaborative economy changed the traditional economic relationships dramatically. Through last 10 years sharing economy showed intensive development and very optimistic perspectives for its future expansion. Despite the critical comments among economists, business investors and academic researchers, the sharing economy proved itself as a successful tool for business start-ups and as a profitable business format for many enterprises, including such in the traditional economic system. Tourism industry shows itself as a very suitable economic field for sharing relationships. Because of the specific characteristics of the up-to-date touristic product – mobility, individuality and technologically influenced, the shared economy found essential place in tourism industry, covering the specific needs and wishes of the modern tourist. The current paper tries to investigate the collaborative economy in the field of tourism business activities and tries to give insights about the things that have been shared, the people, who are sharing, and the attitude of different countries toward this modern form of economic relationship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The objectives of the paper are to explore the relative importance of factors that influence the choice of a particular courier operator, and to evaluate the competitiveness of courier services in a specific market – the Bulgarian courier services market. A methodological approach for evaluation of the competitiveness of courier services was proposed and empirically tested. Based on the analysis it was found that the courier services competitiveness can be measure by the following indicators: timeliness of delivery, reliability, quality of services, competitive price, access to information, meeting customers’ requests and complaints in a satisfactory way. By applying Borda Count Method, it was found that the most important indicators for individual customers are service price, service quality and timeliness of delivery. The main competitors on the Bulgarian courier services market (Econt Express and Speedy) which are also the companies with the largest market share registered the highest level of competitiveness of theirs serviced. The reasons for this are mainly the good balance between consumer satisfactions with the individual indicators. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Chinese tourism changed significantly trough last years. Especially after opening the Chinese economic to the wide world market and liberalizing the travelling of Chinese people, the general profile of China`s tourism got qualitative new characteristics and performance. Even more, for another year the majority of the economic indicators presented stable growth, which witnessed over again the great perspective to the future development of Chinese tourism – domestic and international. On the other side, EU is one of the most important long-term partners of China. This fact creates the necessity to elaborate strong basis for this relationship, which results in the development of many strategic documents. One of them is the strategy “EU – China 2020”, in which location 2018 was pronounced as a year of tourism. The current paper tries to investigate and characterize the tourism of China in the context of the strategy “EU – China 2020” and to summarize the future perspectives in front of EU-China partnership. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this publication, the Framework of a new model of interaction between the parts is in in interest in the processes of strategic governance of higher education in Bulgaria is set. It could serve the administration in its efforts to create real interactions and working networks. The separation from the old department told strictly hierarchical model of public administration in our country is difficult, even with the support of the institutions and norms of the European Union. The problems in the strategic governance of higher education clearly testify to this. The challenges of our time require a multidimensional and integrated approach to public administration. “Good Governance” leads as an appropriate model that sets a new value on interactions. It is an approach to management “together”, through more complex and integrated strategies, which makes it possible to respond adequately to current and future challenges. In this sense, “Good Governance” to lead to sustainable development requires strategic management, so higher education systems should be managed strategically, through “New Public Governance” tools. Expanding interactions, in turn, creates additional challenges that must be addressed. The purpose of the study is to specify guidelines for identifying stakeholders in the “Higher Education” sector and defining a framework for discussion, decision-making and interaction in strategic governance processes. The formulated guidelines and framework should be perceived as the basis of a procedure for the development of interactions, which needs to be developed collectively and to be implemented in a mandatory form in Bulgarian practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction. Technology has greatly supported the development of medicine over the last few decades. Telemedicine is an opportunity to compensate for the performance of general practitioners, especially in remote and sparsely populated areas. The aim of the present study is to examine and analyze the attitudes among general practitioners in Bulgaria for the application of telemedicine services in their practice. Material and methods. A total of 148 people were interviewed to study the attitudes of general practitioners in Bulgaria to apply telemedicine services in their practice. Results. General practitioners in Bulgaria (89.9%) were positive about the use of telemedicine in their practice. Younger and less experienced respondents were more optimistic about the use of telemedicine services in healthcare. Respondents believed that telemedicine would make them more competitive in the market of medical services. They reckoned that telemedicine was applicable in the management of patients with acute symptoms (69.6%) and in the monitoring of patients with chronic diseases (81.1%). Conclusion. The present study showed a positive attitude of general practitioners to the use of telemedicine services in their practice. Older doctors preferred face-to-face contact with their patients and were less likely to apply telemedicine solutions in treatment and diagnosis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The culture of socially responsible innovation presupposes both the implementation of innovations by business organizations and the perception and actions in the Concept of Corporate Social Responsibility. A prerequisite for the above perception is the conscious management of corporate culture. This report's conclusions are based on an empirical, representative study of 300 companies operating in Bulgaria. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For the last several years, Bulgaria has been discussing options for effective integration of a working model for the export of medical services for large groups of foreign consumers, but still a unified approach to integrating national resources into the global medical tourism market has not yet been developed. Four models of process management in international medical tourism there are analyzed in the present research. In order to develop an effective approach to integrate medical centers into the international medical tourism system in order to attract an influx of medical tourists, it is necessary the efforts to be focused on more successful models for the process management of medical tourism. Knowing well the market infrastructure in Bulgaria, the authors reasonably recommend the third and fourth models for process management of medical tourism, which are described in detail in the article. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Childhood is a period that is essential for creating a eating pattern that will reduce cardiovascular risk in the future. The aim of the present study is to study and analyze the nutrition and eating habits of students aged 13-18 years. Documentary, sociological and statistical methods were used. The study covers 229 students from 6 settlements in Bulgaria from 10 schools. The analysis of the data shows that unhealthy eating habits are acquired in childhood and adolescence. There is a relatively low consumption of fresh fruits and vegetables, milk, dairy products and high consumption of ready-made snacks, chips, confectionery, carbonated drinks. Close cooperation is needed between health professionals, teachers and parents in the fight against unhealthy eating habits, which will help reduce heart risk in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cardiovascular diseases in Bulgaria are the leading cause of death among the population and are a consequence of the long-term and cumulative effect of cardiovascular risk factors. Health education of children and adolescents is a leading priority of health promotion, and its goal is to achieve a high health culture, which is crucial in building health behavior and lifestyle of the younger generation and reducing the negative long-term impact of risk factors. The aim of the present study is to establish the health awareness of students on the prevention of cardiovascular diseases and to justify the need for health education. The survey was conducted in the period February-April 2021 among 104 students aged 12 to 17 from high schools in the city of Sofia. A sociological method was used – a survey based on voluntary and anonymous inquiries, specially designed questionnaires, documentary, statistical and graphical analysis of the results. The conclusions we made are that approximately 70.00% of the respondents have never participated in health training for heart health prevention. 42.00% have no information about the risk factors for their cardiovascular health. These data impose and determine the need to raise awareness of all students at the appropriate age. In order to prevent and reduce the health risk, it is necessary to conduct health training with an emphasis on the prevalence and possible prevention of risk factors, as well as future risks to heart health in the early and long-term impact. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article examines the internal for firms determinants of the value of SMEs debt in Bulgaria. The survey is based on data from the financial statements of 100 non-financial enterprises with different main activities for the period 2014 - 2016, provided by the National Statistical Institute. The results of the multiple regression analysis show a statistically significant positive effect on the amount of debt of the enterprises of the following factors: Net sales, Accounting loss, Inventories, Cash flows from operating activities / Net sales, Net sales / Number of employees, Number of employees, Receivables from suppliers and customers / Net sales. The value of the debt of the companies is negatively influenced by the factors: Short-term assets / Total assets, Net sales / Short-term assets, ROA. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The hospital system is a major consumer of healthcare resources. Its functions restore health, prevent disability, and in many cases are life-saving. Due to its mission and social position, the hospital is the mainstay of medical care and a factor that determines the public attitude and opinion on health care. Bulgaria spends much of its limited resources on hospital care. Moreover, the hospital care sector is relatively large as a share of total health care costs, while the share of outpatient care costs is the smallest in the EU. The present study aims to carry out a comparative analysis of the activity of the hospitals of the medical establishments in Bulgaria for the period 2014-2018. Overall, the number of hospital beds in Bulgaria is large and increasing over the last 15 years, contrary to the EU-wide trend. This is due to the large expansion of the private sector, both in the number of hospitals and in the capacity respectively. At the same time, the number of public hospitals is decreasing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The introduction of preventive approaches for eating disorders started in the mid 90s. Since then the number of the elaborated prevention programmes has risen considerably. The measures for eating disorder prevention are implemented mainly in the school environment or on the primary prevention level. In the last several years numerous eating disorder prevention campaigns, initiated by NGOs or experts in the field of nutrition, have been undertaken in Bulgaria. The campaigns have been directed at improving society’s awareness of the problem and special attention is paid to the model for unnatural and unhealthy ‘ideal’ appearance which has been imposed in the last years. Unfortunately, they have been conducted episodically. And still a national programme encompassing all aspects of the problem is not available. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The traditional concept of health Emphasizes on the treatment and recovery mainly of the physical body, with little attention paid to mental, emotional and spiritual health as somethimes the definition of "health" is difficult to distinguish from that of "wellness" The basis of these concepts - health tourism is a unifying category, wellness tourism is a subcategory oriented towards strengthening health,disease prevention and an active improvement of the quality of life where as medical tourism is associated with travel to treat an existing illness through therapeutic and surgical interventions by qualified medical staff, including invasive procedures in cosmetics and plastic surgery. Peloid therapy is an effective treatment method, known and used since ancient times to the present day. Bulgaria is extremely rich in balneological resources - mineral waters and curative mud with the most important being the limestone, peat and mineral spring muds. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Tooth caries is one of the most common diseases in the dentistry. A National Health Strategy has been developed and adopted by the Council of Ministers to prevent the oral health in 5-8 years old children in Bulgaria. Aim: The aim of this study is to explore the parents' awareness and readiness regarding the silanization of the children teeth. Material and Methods: A cross-sectional study has been carried out among 61 parents from two kindergartens in Plovdiv. An anonymous questionnaire is used. Results: A significant number of respondents 67.2% (n = 41) are informed of the silanization of teeth as one of the methods for caries prophylaxis. However, 65.6% (n = 40) don’t know about the current National Program in Bulgaria. If there is no public program for putting of sealants, a significant percentage of respondents (50,8%; n = 31) won’t pay between 25-30 levs of tooth. Nonparametric tests prove the existence of relationship between family status and willingness to pay for sealants (P = 0.019). A significant percentage of married people are willing to pay for silanization (62.9%, n = 22) unlike the unmarried and the divorced. Conclusion: If the parents have to pay for sealants directly (out-of-pocket) this will significant reduce the consumption of these types of dental services. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The main goal of this study is to be done an empirical estimate of the natural and cyclical level of unemployment in Bulgaria. The estimate of the natural and cyclical level of unemployment was done using the Hodrick-Prescott filter. A comparative analysis of the trends for Bulgaria and the European Union as a whole (EU-28) is made. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The main goal of this study is to be done an empirical estimate of the potential GDP of Bulgaria, the output gap and its dynamics. The estimate of potential output was done using the Hodrick-Prescott filter. A comparative analysis of the trends for Bulgaria and the European Union as a whole (EU-28) is made. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of the article is to examine the importance of modern information technologies for the management of credit risk in non-financial enterprises in Bulgaria. There is a statistically significant correlation between the investment in computer equipment and software by the companies in the country and the measures taken to protect them against arrears of trade receivables. The extent of the distribution of electronic invoices and CRM software among companies of different sizes in the country is estimated, as well as the distribution of electronic invoices in Bulgaria compared to the other European countries. The results of the survey lead to the conclusion that in recent years the share of companies in the country sending electronic invoices and CRM software has increased. This trend is more pronounced in large enterprises. Although there is a tendency to expand the use of electronic invoices, Bulgaria ranks among the last places on this indicator compared to other European countries. Despite the high level of broadband internet access, high inter-company indebtedness and relatively good regulatory environment, the benefits of e-invoicing and CRM software to improve the management of trade receivables remain inadequately used in the country. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article analyzes the role and importance of the transport for the quality of Bulgarian tourism product. The concepts of transport, tourist product and the phenomenon “tourism” are being discussed. The common grounds between quality and tourism are being defined. Finally concludes that road transport will remain leading to Bulgaria in relation to carriage of goods and passengers, therefore, the development of the road network will continue to be a priority and a major challenge for ports and airports infrastructure in our country remains finding private investors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]