National park management institutions must adapt as society’s goals and preferences change. This is especially true in countries that recently joined the European Union and have undregone rapid institutional change. Tools for evaluating national park management are important for guiding such institutional changes. We evaluate the ability of the integrated protected area management (IPAM) toolbox to identify areas of management that should be targeted for improvement. We find that the IPAM toolbox breaks the complex task of protected area management into specific tangable action areas, and that IPAM assessment can aid managers in identifing specific areas of protected area management that need revisitng. We conduct an IPAM assessment for all nine Slovak national parks and identify commonalities among the assessment results. These commonalities point to necessary institutional changes beyond the control of individual park administrators. The IPAM toolbox is a useful tool to help national protected area institutions adapt to changing social and environmental conditions. Ultimately, such adaptiation will lead to more efficent and effective park management.