Minister Fleur Agema: “The reality is that in the coming years we will need every spot, every employee, and every bed to maintain acute care in the Netherlands. I am glad that our healthcare partners are working together to gain better insight into where there are places for patients to receive good acute care.”
The agreement has also been signed by Ambulancezorg Nederland (AZN), the primary care association InEen, the National Network for Acute Care, the Dutch mental health care (ggz), the Dutch Federation of University Medical Centers (NFU), and Health Insurers Netherlands (ZN). The organizations representing healthcare providers will become part of the National Platform for Care Coordination (LPZ) and manage its application. In this LPZ app, information is already shared about pressure in emergency care and maternity care. With this agreement, it is agreed to also make this insight possible in ambulance care, general practitioner emergency care, acute nursing & care, and acute mental health care.
Acute care remains accessible
The agreements are an important basis for better healthcare offerings and better distribution of patients by healthcare providers. Good insight into the availability of beds and spaces helps healthcare providers assign the next step at the right time. With the help of care coordination, we can optimally deploy scarce resources and specific knowledge, allowing healthcare professionals to spend their time as effectively as possible. This leads to a better distribution of care and also more job satisfaction.
Before more information about available space in acute care is shared, the organizations will first experiment with this. In this trial, they will investigate how they can adjust data so that everyone can use it and it truly contributes to improving the care process. Once all information from the trial is reliable and usable, it will then be implemented. Automatic provision is the starting point, so that extra administrative burden is avoided.