Monitoring quality in a federal state with shared powers in healthcare: the case of Belgium

The Strategy for Improving the Quality of the Medical Services

Healthcare management has certain particularities, especially when it comes to the quality of the services it provides. Continuous improvement and adaptation of these services to the needs of the patients it’s an activity which should be part of the strategy any medical institution has, especially hospitals.

In this paper we analyze the results of the evaluations prior and after several measures were implemented in order to improve the quality of the medical services in a medical institution.

Integrated care for older adults during the COVID-19 pandemic in Belgium: Lessons learned the hard way

The corona pandemic challenges countries worldwide in many different ways. Due to its magnitude and impact on global health, this health crisis exposes several shortcomings in their health systems and emphasizes their shortcomings and deficiencies. These deficiencies have quickly affected the most frail citizens, such as older people. The first wave of the COVID19 pandemic in Belgium has quickly shown that nursing homes were not prepared for these kinds of crises. The nature, speed and extent gave rise to an accelerated and more extensive collaboration between various nursing homes and Ghent University Hospital. Before this crisis, the level of integrated care between nursing homes and hospitals was mostly limited. But setting up a strong collaboration model and integrated care between nursing homes and hospitals enables the nursing homes to manage this specific and complex care in their own environment.