Dutch Organization for Health Research and Development awarded eight projects under the "Healthcare Evaluation and Appropriate Use" program

The Healthcare Evaluation and Appropriate Use (Zorgevaluatie en Gepast Gebruik ZE&GG) is a joint initiative of all parties of the Outline Agreement on Medical Specialist Care (HLA-MSZ) (healthcare providers, health insurers, patients, and Government) with the objective to implement appropriate use of specialist medical care.

The basic principle of the Healthcare Evaluation and Appropriate Use Program is that the health care assessment will become a part of the regular care processes and care provision and will lead to its appropriate use. The program was initiated in 2019 and will continue until 2024 with a total budget of €46,953,000.

In November 2020, all parties approved the first plan containing ten research questions for which care evaluation should be carried out. The Dutch Organization for Health Research and Development (ZonMw) assessed the subsidy applications.

In January 2022, the following eight projects have been awarded the subsidy:

• Effectiveness of personalized care after treatment for non-metastatic breast cancer based on the risk of recurrence, personal needs, and risk of (late) health effects (the NABOR study); 
• Optimized pharmacotherapy with improved continuity of care in hospitalized older people to examine whether medication-related readmissions to the hospital can be prevented in older people with polypharmacy (the simultaneous use of several different medicines) (the LIMONCELLO study);
• Impact of preoperative structured multidisciplinary team consultation on the outcomes of treatment of patients with a high risk of complications, including the number of complications, improvement of the patient's life, increased cost-effectiveness and functional outcomes (the PREPARATION study);
• Impact of a comprehensive geriatric assessment, including advance care planning, in acutely hospitalized vulnerable elderly patients with cognitive impairments (the GOAL study);
• Comparison of surgical treatment (robot-assisted radical prostatectomy) with external irradiation with hormone therapy in the extensive form of prostate cancer without metastases with the assessment of the patient's quality of life, cost-effectiveness, and progression-free survival (the RECOVER study);
• Cost-effectiveness and clinical outcomes of a CT-driven diagnostics and therapy compared to standard care in patients with suspected coronary artery disease (the CLEAR CAD study);
• Use of statins in frail older patients with ischemic stroke or transient ischemic attack (the SAFEST study);
• A multicenter randomized controlled trial of narrowband UVB light therapy versus optimal topical therapy (ointment therapy) in adults with atopic eczema (the UPDATE study).

The full details in Dutch can be found here.

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