Background: Both conventional and new treatment strategies often lack scientific evidence of effectiveness. Still, they demand finite resources. In the Netherlands, healthcare professionals, health insurers and patient advocates work together to systematically prioritise, execute and implement comparative effectiveness research (CER). After results come available, they are promptly interpreted and adopted in clinical guidelines. All Dutch hospitals have organisational infrastructure with which participating in CER and implementation of new knowledge is stimulated.
Description: With the growing demand for healthcare, increasing challenges in staff shortage and new treatment strategies popping up every day, the challenges we face to keep healthcare available and of high quality are tremendous. For the past 5 years, we have worked in a nationwide collaborative to ‘close the quality circle’. We experienced what is needed for different stakeholders to work together and develop tools to enable everyone to contribute. And even though we have made great progress, there is still a lot to learn. Therefore, we need the knowledge and experience from all participants who are working in policy making, patient involvement, healthcare research and management of healthcare organizations. In this presentation, we share the Dutch method of lowering barriers (example ‘Veldnorm’), stimulating participation (web-based monitoring of research) and collaborating with all parties who have a role in healthcare. What was effective in the Netherlands so far? What can we learn from others?
Patient, public and/or healthcare consumer involvement: The collaboration and way of working together in the Netherlands is necessary to keep our healthcare available to all. The Netherlands Patients Federation is one of the contributors to this collaboration. We closely work together with patient advocates in all aspects of prioritising and executing CER and implementing results.