The aim of the work was to introduce and analyze critically the problems of the construction of information systems effectively supporting the health care management financed from public funds. Analysis was made from the point of view of managers’ decision needs. Special attention was given to its practical usefulness.

The authors’ considerations start from a definition of fundamental concepts, including information system and its implementation and effective support to management. In addition, the key problems of information systems construction were identified in this part of the article. The second part is devoted to their analysis and suggests the solutions.

The starting-point of the analysis was an obvious statement that health care management in Poland financed from public funds needs improvement as it doesn’t satisfy two basic conditions: efficiency and effectiveness. This critical judgment refers to health care system as a whole and to its main components, especially the payer - and disposer - of health insurance fees.

In the authors’ opinion, the causes of this situation are not to be looked for, neither exclusively nor mainly, in too small amounts allocated to the health care system. Destructive factors influencing the quality of management are, first of all, lack of stable and complex legal regulations and tools of management support, in particular the correctly constructed and successfully implemented information systems.

The key construction problems were identified in the areas where the most important, and at the same time specific, problems of health care management financed from public funds are manifest. According to the authors, these problems include: connection of health needs with resources of service providers at the level that may be financed from public funds; bearing responsibility for financial risk and the level of reliability of original data communicated to the payer by the service providers.