When is medical care of added value to the patient? And what type of care actually adds value? This challenging questions play out across the entire spectrum of healthcare. Healthcare which is constantly changing and in which various ethical justice issues arise.
Scientific knowledge should be paramount when it comes to making the best choices for patients. But this scientific foundation could be improved. In healthcare the need for broad and evidence-based (science-driven) underpinnings is greater than ever. In 2023, healthcare costs in the Netherlands will exceed EUR 100 billion for the first time, with healthcare costs doubling between 2015 and 2040. It has become increasingly difficult to control healthcare expenditure, with implications for public spending in other domains.
This advisory report aims to identify what is needed to better steer healthcare decisions based on scientific knowledge. To arrive at a clear-cut, well-defined set of recommendations, this report uses showcases about medicines and medication use. This focus was chosen because the Netherlands possesses considerable expertise when it comes to preventing unnecessary costs of medication use and spillage of medicines, and because it builds upon the Academy's advisory report "Efficiency gains through innovation in medicine development - How can science contribute?” (October 2021).
The committee, chaired by Liesbeth de Vries, has been tasked with identifying the bottlenecks in the current system and with mapping how science can contribute to a learning healthcare system in which clinical data is used to continuously generate new scientific knowledge that can be applied in clinical decision-making.
Liesbeth de Vries, Medical Oncology at the University Medical Center Groningen, Groningen, the Netherlands