Mobility Of Health Professionals To From And Within The European Union

This publication is a shortened version of the summary report “Mobility of Health Professionals: Health systems, work conditions, patterns of health workers’ mobility and implication for policy makers”, which was published in March 2012, in Bonn, Germany, by a consortium led by Dr. Caren Weilandt at the Wissenschaftliches Institut der Ärzte Deutschlands (WIAD, Scientific Institute of the Medical Association of German Doctors). It provides an overview of the outcomes of the MoHProf project that aimed to gather more insights into the processes and effects of mobility of health professionals to, from and within the European Union (EU) and which was carried out under the 7th Framework Programme for Research and Development of the EU.

The mobility of health professionals affects the performance of health systems, and increasingly so since the European Union (EU) enlargements in 2004 and 2007. This publication presents research on the gaps in knowledge about the numbers, trends, impacts and policy responses to this dynamic situation, in particular in Austria, Belgium, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Turkey and the United Kingdom. Conducted within the framework of the European Commission s Health PROMeTHEUS project, the research posed a set of questions of key interest to policy-makers: * What are the scale and characteristics of health professional mobility in the EU? * What have been the effects of EU enlargement? * What are the motivations of the mobile workforce? * What are the resulting impacts on health system performance? * What is the policy relevance of those impacts? * What are the policy options to address health professional mobility issues? In answering these questions, this publication offers policymakers evidence of the nature and extent of health professional mobility in the EU, analyzes its impact on country health systems and outlines some major policy strategies to address mobility.

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.

This book on mobility of health professionals reviews, analyses and summarises published information and data as well as collected interview data from stake holders, including politicians, policy makers, health service managers and migrant health workers. It is based on the research carried out under the umbrella of the EU-funded project “Mobility of Health Professionals (MoHProf). The partners involved in the MoHProf project gathered evidence from 25 countries around basic questions and knowledge gaps relating to the international migration of health professionals, which involved an analysis of migration flows and evaluation of policies addressing migration. This book provides a comprehensive description and analysis of the mobility streams, the motives and driving forces behind them and the impact on and challenges for health systems and draws conclusions and provides recommendations for future strategic planning, monitoring and the management of mobility of health professionals as well as further research and policy development needs.

Health workers in the European Union (EU) are free to seek employment in another Member State as guaranteed by EU law. This mobility of health professionals changes the composition of the health workforce in source and destination countries and may aggravate or mitigate existing problems such as shortages, mal-distribution and skill-mismatches of health professionals. To mitigate unwanted effects and strengthen positive ones, the Member States of the World Health Organization have adopted the Global Code of Practice on the International Recruitment of Health Personnel. The Code, however, needs to be contextualized for Europe, taking into account the freedom of movement in the EU. Mitigating unwanted effects and strengthening positive ones is highly relevant in the EU as some Member States rely to a large extent on foreign health professionals while others experience important outflows. In the EU free mobility area, flows of health professionals are dynamic, often changing direction and magnitude, and affect all countries. Countries are faced with the constantly changing conundrum of efficiency and equity, that is, between the free mobility of health professionals in the European labour market on one hand, and the planning requirements of health systems ensuring universal health coverage on the other hand. It is necessary to disentangle the conundrum and make it accessible to policy-makers and stakeholders as health professional mobility: has clear effects on efficiency and equity; is a complex phenomenon, neither positive nor negative per se, but implying merits and drawbacks for both source and destination countries; and affects the EU as a whole and destination and source countries simultaneously. Three sets of policy options can be used to address the consequences of health professional mobility on efficiency and equity at EU and country level: policy options to foster health workforce sustainability; policy options to manage mobility; and EU action to address the consequences and opportunities of free mobility. Countries can choose from a wide range of policy options that correspond best with their needs (Table 2). Implementing policy options will often require strong intersectoral governance and consensus building across government departments and stakeholders.

Sequal volume to Health professional mobility and health systems: evidence from 17 European countries / edited by Matthias Wismar ... [et al.]. c2011.

"This book can be read by anyone with an interest in migration and health, whether as an advocate for migrants´ health, as a student in a health profession, researcher or policy maker. It provides an ample orientation to the field in the European context. Among other important raised issues, it underlines an all too often neglected fact; health is a human right. By involving broad issues and problem areas from a variety of perspectives, the volume illustrates that migration and health is a field that can not be allocated to a single discipline." Carin Björngren Cuadra, Senior Lecturer, Malmö University, Sweden Migrants make up a growing share of European populations. However, all too often their situation is compounded by problems with accessing health and other basic services. There is a need for tailored health policies, but robust data on the health needs of migrants and how best these needs can be met are scarce. Written by a collaboration of authors from three key international organisations (the European Observatory on Health Systems and Policies, the EUPHA Section on Migrant and Ethnic Minority Health, and the International Organization for Migration), as well as leading researchers from across Europe, the book thoroughly explores the different aspects of migration and health in the EU and how they can be addressed by health systems. Structured into five easy-to-follow sections, the volume includes: Contributions from experts from across Europe Key topics such as: access to human rights and health care; health issues faced by migrants; and the national and European policy response so far Conclusions drawn from the latest available evidence Comprehensive information on different aspects of health and migration and how they can best be addressed by health systems is still not easy to find. This book addresses this shortfall and will be of major value to researchers, students, policy-makers and practitioners concerned with migration and health in an increasingly diverse Europe.