Cross-Border Care and Cooperation

Abstract

IntroductionThe movement of health professionals and patients and has highlighted appeals for better coordination of health systems and policies across the EU. Yet the absolute numbers of patient mobility within the EU remain relatively small, in some cases the most appropriate and accessible care happens to be in another Member State (Bertinato et al., 2005). Where phenomenon does take place it raises complex questions about its impact for health systems, patients, and health professionals. In 2011 the European Union decided to tackle issue on the legal platform.1.The Directive on Patients' Rights in Cross-border HealthcareThe health systems of the EU State Members are a key component of the Union's high levels of social protection, and contribute to social justice. Although each and every EU country is responsible for ensuring its citizens the access to health care, based on the national rules, patient mobility within EU State Members is a growing phenomenon.It is truth that most citizens prefer to be treated near their own homes, in their native language, and with familiar procedures, but some groups of patients may decide to be treated abroad if it offers some advantage (WHO, 2014). Among these groups are:- temporary visitors abroad who travel for work and for leisure,- people who retire to another country,- citizens in border regions,- people going abroad on their own initiative,- patients sent abroad by their home systems.Although the absolute level of patient mobility within EU is still relatively low, the most accessible or appropriate care for certain groups, such as people living in border regions, may be in another EU Member State. It makes cross-border patient mobility within European Union high on the agenda.In March 2011, the Council and the European Parliament adopted the Directive on Patients' Rights in Cross-border Healthcare. It was to provide a clear legal framework and to clarify the mechanisms involved in providing cross-border care (European Council, 2011). One can read that this Directive aims to establish rules for facilitating access to safe and high-quality cross-border healthcare in the Union and to ensure patient mobility in accordance with the principles established by the Court of Justice and to promote cooperation on healthcare between Member States, whilst fully respecting the responsibilities of the Member States for the definition of social security benefits relating to health and for the organisation and delivery of healthcare and medical care and social security benefits, in particular for sickness (European Council, 2011).In 2013 the Directive 2011/24/EU was transposed into national law. These legislative changes that clarified patient entitlements to cross-border care, are very likely to have important impacts on national and EU-wide policies.2.Main objective and results of PGHS 2015 projectAlthough patients mobility across EU, especially across Poland and Germany, is not intense, there are challenges for communication and continuity of care between health professionals for those patients who do receive care abroad. The financial aspects of the patient flow constitutes also fundamental issues in cross-border cooperation. These problems there among those that have been addressed by the project entitled German Health Summit 2015 (PGHS, 2015). It was a joint initiative, undertaken by the academic and business organizations, namely University of Szczecin, University of Greifswald, German Hospital Federation and Polish Hospital Federation.The project brings together experienced researchers from Poland and Germany, as well as business people who are active in the field of health care. It engaged altogether 86 scientists and managers, who attended 8 hours of scientific content delivered by 25 speakers. Among hot topics, transposition of the EU Cross -Border Care Directive was particularly interesting. …