MARKET PLACE
Raising awareness
The dominant themes in The Netherlands are similar to those in the rest of Europe: an ageing population, quality of health care and manageable cost development in the health care system. The introduction of a new health care system on 1 January 2006 and the implementation of new legislation set the impetus for modernisation of care. This involves a more central role for the patient and a system that is based on free market principles with a meaningful role for health insurers.
The changes that this has produced have made it imperative that the substantial significance of medical technology and medical devices are positioned more clearly, and that these are raised as a social theme. With this objective, Nefemed, the Dutch association of manufacturers of medical devices, has compiled a report: “The Social Relevance of Medical Devices.”
The report includes a description of medical and technological developments in five fields of clinical disorder, among these are heart/vascular disease and arthrosis. The report examines the progress and the added value of medical technology for the patient, health care and society. It also highlights a number of dilemmas. For example, it states that an evidence based approach to the assessment of whether or not a medical device is eligible for reimbursement is impossible for many medical devices. Furthermore, the importance of product innovation in relation to health care innovation to improve efficiency in the health care chain is still an issue of limited cohesion in terms of policy.
Time for action
Based on the report, which has been presented to the Dutch Minister of Health, Welfare and Sport, five policy statements have been formulated with a number of specific policy suggestions. These are as follows:
- Invest in medical technology, which beneficially influences and lessens the total cost of society.
- Stimulate innovation for the benefit of efficiency in health care processes and health care innovation.
- Promote the correct use of medical technology for the benefit of social autonomy and the ability of people to live independently (allow quality of life).
- Medical technology can provide an essential contribution to solving the future lack of personnel in care professions (substitution of labour with technology).
- Advancement of medical technology offers opportunities for the Dutch economy.
Future strategies
For Nefemed, the report is just the starting point in the discussion of the wide significance of medical technology. The Association held a symposium on 10 May 2007 to address the subject of innovation in medical technology and several points became abundantly clear.
Innovation will become increasingly part of the private sector because of the larger amounts of money available in that sector.
The public sector will increasingly be faced with a lack of financial means. For health care, this means that innovation will take shape within open knowledge or innovation clusters where the patient, supported by the doctor and medical industry will occupy centre stage.
Looking into the future, there is a social necessity to map the medical technologies required for treating major disorders.
In addition, medical technology that leads to labour saving in care will receive special attention. It is one of the most important policy topics of the Dutch Ministry of Health, Welfare and Sport.
The discussion at the symposium, which involved a large number of health care organisations, made one thing extremely apparent: medical technology is indispensable in health care.
Information supplied by Nefemed, the Dutch federation of manufacturers, importers and distributors of medical products, Reitseplein 1 NL-037 AA Tilburg, The Netherlands, tel. + 31 13 5944 342, email: nefemed@wispa.nl, www.nefemed.nl.
