The project "Solutions for improving health care cooperation in border regions" (EUREGIO II) aims to support health and health service related cross-border activities in border regions. It is a successor of the project "Evaluation of cross border activities in the European Union" (EUREGIO, 2004-2007) and complementary to the project "Health investments in Structural Funds 2000-2006: learning lessons to inform regions in the 2007-2013 period" (EUREGIO III). All projects have received funding under the Public Health Programme of the European Union.

Background of the project

General objectives and expected results

Target groups

Period

The webpage

Background of the project

Health services, systems and policies are confronted with old and new challenges. Some major topics are

• respondance to epidemiological, demographic and technological changes;
• the quality, effectiveness and efficieny of health services, prevention and health promotion;
• health inequalities;
• access to health services;
• education and mobility of health personal etc.

The European integration adds new dimensions to the topics and raises some further challenges, e.g.

• health inequalities across Europe;
• more demand for health services abroad and vice versa more supply of health services to patients from abroad:
  • Patients ask for health services outside of their home countries.
  • Health insurances and even national health services have begun to buy in health services from other countries.
  • Health services providers are becoming interested in providing health services to patients from other countries in and outside of their own country.
• cross-border mobility of health personal;
• managing cross-border activities under conditions of different health systems;
• coping with European regulations and programmes and their impact on health services and systems.

The European integration offers also opportunities to handle the old and new challenges by cross-border cooperation

• to build up European and comparative information and indicators bases;
• to influence health determinants;
• to minimse health risks;
• to support cooperation, mutual learning and capacity building within and between EU Member States and their regions.

Respective activities are supported by the EU Public Health Programm. Additionally, regional policies and EU Structural Funds offer opportunities for investments in health and to link investments in health with strategies for regional development.

General Objectives and Expected Results

Beside the national level, the regional level is highly relevant to master the challenges of population health and health services. Border regions are confronted with certain specific challenges (e.g. wage gaps, cost differentials, language barriers, etc.). They are also 'practise laboratories' in which practical solutions for cooperation in cross-border health care between EU Member States are tested for the benefit of the health of the whole population.

While some border regions can build their cross-border activities on a huge amount of experiences collected over decades, other regions have not so much experiences yet. Closing information gaps, identifying good practise, developing tools for the planning and realisation of programmes and projects as well as capacity building and enabling mutual learning can motivate for action and support good practice.

The general objective of EUREGIO II is to stimulate and promote cross-border cooperation in health care in border regions by fostering the usability of various existing instruments and methods, e.g. EU Structural Funds and Health Technology Assessment.

The output of the project will include

• a Handbook for the effective use of EU Structural Funds, especially the INTERREG IVa programme which supports activities in border regions (WP4 'Making effective use of the structural fund Interreg')
• a guideline for the utilisation of Health Technology Assessment (HTA) within the decision making process in border regions (WP5 'Usage of generic HTA in cross-border cooperation')
• a legal report on the effects of tort and data protection rights in the provision of cross-border health care services (WP6 'Legal aspects of data/information exchange as well as liability rights in cross-border cooperation').

Target groups

Target groups are those with responsibilities for border regions and being (potentially) involved in the planning and realization of health and healthcare service related cross-border activities in border regions, especially (but not only) public health officials, health service organisation and health insurances.

Period

The project has started at December 2008 and will be finished November 2011.

The webpage

The webpage offers information about the project - and the project team hopes to motivate feedbacks including information, critical comments and questions.

The following pages are offered:

• "Work packages": Find a detailed description of the objectives, statuts and ongoing activities of the EUREGIO II work packages.
• "Project group": Inform yourself about the organisations and persons being involved in the project and visit their webpages to look for further information.
• "Downloads": Get more information about the project, its findings and output by downloading conference presentations, working papers, publications, interim and final reports.
• "Further information": Here we try to offer information about interesting events, publications and other information resources.
• "Contact": The succes on EUREGIO II will be strongly influenced by your communication and feedback. Do you have any questions? Do you disagree with some statements? Do you miss some information on this webpage? Do you have any information which should be placed on this webpage? Please contact us to fill this project with experience and life!
• "Members only": This webpage is only accessible for members of the EUREGIO II project group. It supports the internal communication.