Continuation of Regular Care - Pandemic Preparedness

During the COVID pandemic, it became clear that delaying regular (non-acute) care can cause harm. The RIVM report ‘The health consequences of surgical procedures postponed during the coronavirus pandemic’ has shown that care for non-life-threatening conditions, including certain operations, was often postponed. This resulted in people losing potential years of healthy life. 

It is therefore vital to ensure that regular care can continue as much as possible during crisis situations, such as a pandemic. This can be achieved through optimised regional and national coordination and the use of digital tools – such as home monitoring, data science and artificial intelligence (AI) – that improve the organisation and accessibility of care. This approach is in line with the healthcare transformation described in the Integral Care Agreement (IZA). 

The aim of the programme is to ensure that regular (non-acute) care is agile enough to continue during crisis situations, such as a pandemic, through the implementation of digital tools and various measures to support flexibility in care provision. The focus will be on specialist medical care provided by hospitals, rather than emergency (acute) care. 

To achieve this aim, we will use 3 lines of action:

• Improve data availability and data applications to support the regional coordination of regular specialist medical care.
• Use digital tools to enhance the regional and national coordination of regular specialist medical care.
• Encourage the use of digital tools that contribute to the flexible use or alternative provision of specialist medical care. 

This strategy is aligned with the cross-domain, content-related objectives of the IZA.

The 3 lines of action set out above each have their own focus areas: 

Improving data availability and data applications to support the regional coordination of regular specialist medical care means focusing on the availability of data and the implementation of data applications that can help manage regular care by taking into account the available and required capacity, both regionally and nationally. We will also focus on the availability of data and the implementation of applications for early detection and prediction. Data from primary and secondary care will be particularly relevant in this context.

Using digital tools to enhance the regional and national coordination of regular specialist medical care means that we will encourage the planning and coordination of regular care at both regional and national levels, using the data applications from the first line of action.

Encouraging the use of digital tools that contribute to the flexible use or alternative provision of specialist medical care means that we aim to support the accelerated implementation of proven applications that can contribute to the flexible organisation of healthcare, such as home monitoring and home treatment, and to the infrastructure required for this (such as sensors and training programmes). We will also encourage efforts to scale up specialist medical care at a distance, to provide care closer to patients’ homes.

This programme will be carried out in collaboration with other ZonMw-programmes. To avoid overlap with other digital initiatives, ZonMw will coordinate with other parties, such as Digizo.nu, on a regular basis. There will also be regular consultations with the care coordination project team of the Ministry of Health, Welfare and Sport and the various ROAZ regions to optimise synergies.