Regional Formation and Development Studies

The research aim is to identify the key factors influencing patient engagement and, after analysing strategies for patient engagement used worldwide, to assess their suitability for involving patients in the Ga East Municipality, Ghana. Employing a qualitative desk review approach, the study examined existing literature. It analysed global patient engagement frameworks across 20 studies conducted over the last ten years, based on the subcategories of trust, education, leadership and shared understanding. While the review highlighted several implications for health outcomes and patient satisfaction related to patient engagement, it also revealed that various factors, including low National Health Insurance Scheme enrolment, poor communication methods, gender inequities and trust issues, drive patient engagement. The article illustrated that educated, supported and engaged patients in decision-making adhered to treatment recommendations more frequently and expressed greater satisfaction with their care. A review of international frameworks revealed a range of strategies employed globally to enhance patient engagement.

The Nordic Baltic region (5+3)2 is now closely interlinked via trade, investment, mobility of people, and banking. All the countries in this group have pursued some form of integration with the European Union (EU). Six of them are EU member states, four of them are members of the euro area, and all of them are within the European Economic Area (EEA) and are Schengen member states. But can these small countries as a group cooperate more closely and perhaps exercise more collective authority in Europe? The Nordic countries and the Baltic States cooperate in the Bretton Woods institutions, the World Bank and the IMF, and six of them are among European NATO member states. When it comes to European integration the lack of common approach complicates their cooperation. Within this group there are internal divisions between the hardcore EU and euro area member states (the Baltics and Finland), EU members (Denmark and Sweden) and EU outsiders (Iceland and Norway). Common pathways for the future cooperation in Europe may be hard to find. Also, the Nordics are high income welfare states, but the Baltics are neoliberal with minimal governments and low-tax regimes. Additionally, external forces continue to challenge the Nordic Baltic region, including revanchist Russian policies threatening Baltic Sovereignty, unpredictable US policies towards NATO as well as reduced military presence in Europe, and dismal EU and euro area post crisis economic performance. All point to a future of uncertainty including both economic and security risks.

The paper is part of a research series for ancient Roman sites in Northern Bulgaria which aim to present the possibilities of creating a specialized form of cultural and historical product that ensures sustainable utilization of the Bulgarian tangible heritage. A study of the Roman fortress Sostra, located on the Via Traiani road as a cultural and historical tourist resource was conducted. The castellum is characterized as an object of cultural heritage in the region of Troyan Municipality in Bulgaria. The methodology applied in assessing the potential of the Ancient Roman fortress Sostra is primarily designed for historical and cultural sites. An evaluation was made under the following criteria: potential for development, degree of impact / interaction, degree of modification with relevant indicators. Also an expedition-field method for terrain research was applied. Summaries and conclusions were made in order to highlight the possibility of forming a tourist product of cultural and cognitive tourism.

This time, the journal is publishing articles of different scientific interests. The articles are different, as is the autumn colour palette in nature. H. Hilmarrson provided insights into the economic similarities and differences between the Nordic and Baltic countries, while A. Guogis, A. V. Rakšnys analyzed patterns of welfare states. The prosperity of the state cannot exist if there is corruption in the country. And perception of corruption was investigated by I. Pikturnaitė, J. Jonuševičienė, R. Kavolius. The analysis of demographic and social changes in Klaipėda suburbs was carried out by D. Verkulevičiūtė-Kriekienė, I. Nomeikienė. P. Lakov, I. Shopova presented opportunities of cultural and historical attraction for tourists in Bulgaria. D. Behmane, D. Rutitis, V. Savicka rated the websites of health care providers. K. Casno, D. Šķiltere, B. Sloka, and G. Tauraitė-Janušauskienė discussed the role of social entrepreneurship in the context of sustainable development. The role of digitalization in the development of civil society is analyzed in the article by E. Lielpēters, while the online car rental wars are discussed in S. H. Pramudya’s article. E. Dundure, B. Sloka’s article analyzes the Latvian pension system, while the problems of material deprivation are analyzed in B. Sloka, K.Cipane’s article. The effect of fear of loss was discussed by V. Tauraitė. The importance of the use of emotional intelligence in vocational training was studied by A. Lice, B. Sloka. A review of H. Hilmarson’s book written by S. Kumar can also be found in this issue. Enjoy your readings.

The rapid development of internet and technologies in the 21th century is providing an opportunity for the development of digital democracy – citizen engagement in the decision-making process in an easier, faster and more contemporary way. The paper analysis Latvian public administration’s attitude to the development of digital democracy in Latvia, looking into digital engagement as a possible solution that could foster the low rates of civic and political participation in Latvia. Research methods of the paper consists of an analysis of academic publications on digital democracy and political engagement, and survey to the representatives of the public administration in Latvia. Conclusions of the paper suggest that there are good preconditions for the development of digital democracy in Latvia, however, there is a need for a common regulation for how digital communication and online participation is coordinated. Public institutions should pay more attention to Latvian youth, educating them about public administration and political engagement, thus ensuring that gradually Latvian citizens become more knowledgeable about advantages and necessity to participate in the decision-making process of public administration in Latvia.

Pension systems have become one of the main priorities for the national governments. Developed countries population is getting older by putting the pressure on the state budgets and work age people tax load. The current pension system in Latvia performs according to regulation of state compulsory unfunded pension scheme since 1996 and regulation of the state funded or accumulated pension scheme since 2001. The third pension system pillar is private voluntary pension schemes realized in form of people contributions into pension funds and life insurance policies. Aim of the research – deeper analyses of voluntary private investments as the

Material deprivation has recently gained prominence as a topic of debate as its proliferation is reising throughout Europe in particular

Social entrepreneurship is becoming more and more popular as there is a growing share of people who would like to contribute for

The prospective health care consumers are increasingly using the Internet websites for communication with potential health care service providers and decision-making regarding choice of the travel destination for receiving particular health care services. Therefore, it is important for health care providers to present themselves and their services efficiently online in order to attract foreign patients and thus facilitate medical tourism. The objective of this study is to evaluate the website content of Latvian health care providers who offer services to medical tourists in order to evaluate their status-quo and identify opportunities to improve website design. Authors used the framework by Huerta et al. (2016) as a basis to develop a modified framework suited for medical tourism-related website evaluation. 21 active websites associated with a medical tourism and provision of health care services to foreign patients were identified and selected for analysis. Each website was evaluated using a 10-factor assessment on 4 dimensions that include website accessibility, content, marketing, technology on a scale ranging from 0 to 10. Results: Scores of 21 website evaluation ranged from 54 to 91 point across all 4 dimensions with 80 and above points being considered as excellent result. Conclusions: Study findings indicated that the main improvements should be related to accessibility dimension and enabling text resizing function for improving experience for patients with poor sight, information dimension in terms of developing a separate main level section with information exclusively for foreign patients, and marketing dimension to improve effectiveness of search engine optimization (SEO) for medical tourism related keywords.

It is pointed in the article that a significant and relevant direction of new social sciences in the body of the problems of research into welfare states (in general) and in Central and Eastern European countries in particular, could be the investigation of the problem of compatibility and coherence between welfare state models and public administration models, to be more precise, examining if this relation is accidental or not. This problem of coherence between welfare state and public administration models has to be investigated empirically in subsequent research, as the author raises this problem firstly in this article theoretically.