Seventeen projects awarded under the 2024 round of the Efficiency Research program

The Efficiency Research program of the Dutch Organization for Health Research and Development (ZonMw) is intended to develop socially relevant and high-quality knowledge about the effectiveness and costs of innovative and existing non-pharmaceutical diagnostic and therapeutic interventions within the basic insurance package or long-term care. 

The following types of projects are eligible for the Efficiency Research program:

• The project provides knowledge about the effectiveness and costs of non-pharmacotherapeutic interventions;
• The project is a comparison of intervention with standard care;
• The project concerns comparative research into interventions with proven safety and plausible efficacy.

In early July 2024, seventeen projects within round 2 (“Even more implementation of knowledge and innovations in practice”) were awarded the subsidy, including four projects on e-health, two projects on diagnostic imaging techniques, two projects in orthopedics, one project on abdominal surgery, one project in gynecology, and one project in the cardiovascular area. 

The examples of the awarded projects include:

• Implementation of the cost-effective PreHEART score for prehospital triage of chest pain;
• Implementation of the fluorescent dye indocyanine green for the detection of lymph node metastases during breast cancer surgery;
• Implementation of optical coherence tomography (OCT) for non-invasive diagnostics of the basal cell carcinoma;
• Implementation of the Manchester operation as a surgical treatment for uterine prolapse;
• A multicenter, mixed methods study of the appropriate use of video consultations;
• Unburdening and faster recovery through the use of the ikHerstel app and self-management after minor cardiac procedures;
• Optimization of preparation and aftercare for patients undergoing cardiac surgery (CABG) care via eHealth;
• Exercise therapy for every patient with early symptoms of knee osteoarthritis.

The subsidy within this round is intended to allow proven cost-effective interventions to be further applied in practice. The projects will start by the end of 2024 at the latest.

See more information in Dutch here.

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