Status of the healthcare structural reform in Denmark

On August 19, 2024, the Agenda for the meeting of the Board of Danish Regions was published. The meeting was held on August 22, 2024; however, the minutes of the meeting are not available yet. 

One of the themes to be discussed during the meeting was the Danish Regions consultation response regarding the Health Structure Commission's report. Danish Regions outlined that the report's proposals for different management models contain many positive elements. But none of these models deliver a solution that creates consistency, high quality, and the best possible health for the money without unnecessary transaction costs and gambling with the quality of the hospitals. Danish Regions, therefore, proposed a direction for a fourth model, which could deliver the greatest effect for the citizens, the most possible health for the money, and the lowest possible transaction costs. 

Some of the comments on the Health Structure Commission's report from Danish Regions include the following:

• Danish Regions support the need to strengthen the general practice offer;
• Danish Regions agree that digitization is central to the continued development of the Danish healthcare system;
• Danish Regions support the development of a common digital strategy for the healthcare system;
• Danish Regions support the establishment of a national organization, Digital Health Denmark, for the entire healthcare system. It is expected that a common national organization will be able to play an important role in driving and further developing the common national IT infrastructure that cuts across sectors, such as the common telemedicine infrastructure (FUT), the common message communication (MedCom), the Health Journal, the Common Medicine Card (FMK), and the National Service Platform (NSP);
• Danish Regions have previously proposed a National Center for Health Innovation, which will ensure investment in innovative labor-saving solutions and their dissemination. Danish Regions strongly recommend that the work continues to establish a National Center for Health Innovation with a focus on scaling innovative health solutions independently of the Commission's recommendations in the IT and data area;
• Danish Regions support the recommendation for a national health plan that supports a distribution of resources that reflects the population's needs across sectors and geography;
• Danish Regions outline that the challenges in the healthcare system will not be solved with either more or fewer regions. In return, there will be large transaction costs associated with changes in the regional structure.

See the full details in Danish here.

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