Healthcare Across Eu Borders Evidence

A report that welcomes the proposal from the European Commission for a Directive on patients' rights to cross-border healthcare but calls for improvements and warns that, due to the unpredictable impact of the provisions in the Directive, it must be carefully monitored upon implementation.

A report that welcomes the proposal from the European Commission for a Directive on patients' rights to cross-border healthcare but calls for improvements and warns that, due to the unpredictable impact of the provisions in the Directive, it must be carefully monitored upon implementation.

Cross-border health care has become a much more prominent phenomenon in the European Union. When in need of medical treatment, patients increasingly act as informed consumers who claim the right to choose their own providers, including those beyond borders. This book explores such trends and also looks at the legal framework for cross-border care as well as examining some of the uncertainties surrounding it. After the adoption of the Directive on the application of patient rights in cross-border care, Member States will now have to start implementing these provisions. One of the challenges will be to see how various national practices related to access, benefits and tariffs, quality and safety, patient rights, cooperation etc. will be affected by these new rules. The information and analysis presented in the study can be of considerable use to policy-makers and those with an interest in key aspects of cross-border health care to accompany or follow this process.

People have always travelled within Europe for work and leisure, although never before with the current intensity. Now, however, they are travelling for many other reasons, including the quest for key services such as health care. Whatever the reason for travelling, one question they ask is "If I fall ill, will the health care I receive be of a high standard?" This book examines, for the first time, the systems that have been put in place in all of the European Union's 27 Member States. The picture it paints is mixed. Some have well developed systems, setting standards based on the best available evidence, monitoring the care provided, and taking action where it falls short. Others need to overcome significant obstacles.

This report makes available the evidence given by the Rt. Hon Rosie Winterton, Minister of State for Health Services, on the issues involved in cross-border healthcare in the European Union. It was given in relation to the EU Commission's Communication - "Consultation regarding Community Action in Health Services ", SEC (2006) 1195/4.

This volume examines why hospitals collaborate with each other and with other health care actors across borders in Europe. Cross-border hospital collaboration is not a new phenomenon but began to receive increased attention in the first decade of the 21st century in the context of European debates on patient mobility, the impact of European Union (EU) integration on national health systems and the particular situation of border regions. In this context, the role of health care providers stands out: while physically anchored in the health system that funds and regulates them, hospitals in border regions often witness or initiate cross-border movements of patients and health professionals.

Patient mobility across Europe is markedly increasing and new generations will actively ask to be treated by the health-care system that best meets their needs. At a political level, the EU issued the EU Directive no. 24/2011/CE of 9th March 2011 concerning the application of patients’ rights in cross-border health care and has contributed to improving the level of freedom of choice for the European citizen, but it does not seem to have increased actual patient mobility across Europe. Freedom to choose is necessary to grant the people of Europe the same access to public-sector health-care services. The latter is a key instrument for an efficiently functioning “single market” ensuring real mobility within the EU. The aim of this book is to study the current European health care market and discuss the hypothesis of a European right of citizenship with reference to health-care services. It examines patients' mobility from several perspectives: determinants of patient mobility, governance of cross-border mobility at EU level as concerns patients and health-care professionals, policy implications, and case studies. It is intended for health researchers, decision-makers and professionals concerned with health-care provision and patient mobility. The goal is to provide, through scientific and methodological rigor, new informative tools useful for the implementation of new policies in the health-care sector in order to implement effective health-care integration in the European Union.