The Senate approved the Care Quality Registration Act last week. Thus, after approval by the Lower House, the introduction of this law is a fact. Patiëntenfederatie Nederland, which has campaigned intensively for this outcome, emphasizes that the new law increases insight into the quality of care, while also giving patients more control over their own health data.
In healthcare, much is recorded about quality, but until now this was done in different ways and on different subjects. The new law should streamline this registration. According to Patiëntenfederatie Nederland, uniform registration will make it possible to better measure which treatments or care pathways work best for which patients. This helps patients and care providers make better choices together and offers care providers the opportunity to learn more from each other, which benefits the quality of care.
The law also means an improvement in privacy protection and increased control for patients. "Collecting data is incredibly important to improve the quality of care. But at the same time, we value patient control over that data. The law provides a good balance between those two interests," said Arthur Schellekens, executive director of Patient Federation Netherlands.
After the passage of the law, Patient Federation of the Netherlands will continue its efforts to structurally include the patient perspective in the implementation. Qualitative registration is a crucial first step, but according to the federation, the next step should be to make the information transparent and understandably accessible to all patients.
