Abstract

In late 2022, 14 parties signed the Integral Care Agreement (IZA) to keep healthcare effective, accessible and affordable. Among other things, the parties agreed on more collaboration within the regions. This applies to collaboration between different parts of the healthcare system, such as GPs, hospitals and home care, as well as to collaboration between medical care and social care, for example by municipalities.

For the benefit of the Integrated Care Agreement, RIVM will monitor how this regional collaboration develops up to 2027. This baseline measurement will show what regional collaboration was like in the Netherlands in the run-up to 2024. It aims to take into account whether the right care was provided at the right place and it will also identify whether the medical and social domains collaborate effectively and to what extent the regions have developed their partnerships.

This baseline measurement will not yet provide a basis for determining whether the right care is always provided at the right place. We currently have insufficient data on how often care providers from different parts of the care system refer patients to each other and how often patients are referred between medical care and social care. We also have insufficient data on the numbers of people using different forms of support provided by municipalities, such as social work.

RIVM does expect to be able to provide more insight into the collaboration with and between municipalities by 2025. Data from a different monitor by RIVM into the Healthy and Active Living Agreement (GALA) will become available for this.

The partnerships themselves believe they are doing reasonably well, (score of 3 out of 5) in reaching their goals. These 5 goals are as follows: higher quality of care and support, better health of residents, lower care and other costs, greater job satisfaction for care providers, equality for residents in care and support. The monitor will use these goals to measure the success of the collaboration.

It is not yet possible to indicate how much progress the IZA regions have made in developing their collaboration. RIVM will collect data on this in 2024 and issue a report in 2025.