How do we strengthen cross-border cooperation in health care between the Netherlands and Flanders/Belgium? What are the benefits? And what can we learn from good examples? These and other questions will be answered at a patient guideline conference on November 19, 2024 at the Flemish government’s Belpaire building in Brussels, in a collaboration between the Dutch, Flemish and federal governments, with involvement from ITEM, Switch Point Border Barriers Flanders-Netherlands and ANV, supported from the European Commission (DG Santé).
The conference revolves around planned cross-border healthcare and lays the foundation for effective follow-up actions for further cooperation in this area. The Directive on the Application of Patients’ Rights in Cross-Border Healthcare (the Patients Directive) is the guiding principle. In the appendix you will find the program.
ITEM researcher Susanne Sivonen will join the panel, and ITEM’s Pim Mertens will moderate insightful discussions throughout the day.
The workshop will address:
- facilitating cross-border cooperation,
- the benefits of cross-border cooperation,
- evaluating what goes well and what does not (yet) go well,
- examining and drawing insights from examples from the Flemish-Dutch border region.
Attention to European reference networks
To speed up diagnosis in the case of rare diseases, the workshop will also focus on a lesser-known topic: European reference networks. In these, doctors work together across borders based on their knowledge to improve care for people with rare diseases. Based on examples of Dutch and Belgian participation in these reference networks, this topic will be discussed.
Varied group with lively discussion
The workshop brings together relevant stakeholders from different sectors, creating a lively discussion from the different backgrounds and disciplines of the speakers and participants. We also focus on concrete cooperation initiatives in the different sub-regions of the border region.
For whom interested?
All stakeholders relevant to cooperation in healthcare between Belgium and the Netherlands such as: policy makers, (regional) governments, national authorities, organizations and networks, health insurers, healthcare providers and other experts involved in cross-border healthcare.
