June 19th, 2019

Feedback 10th EHFCN Open House hosted by NZa (13-14 June 2019)

Program EHFCN Open house 2019

It was a pleasure and honor to participate in the 10th EHFCN Open House event, hosted by the Dutch Healthcare Authority in Utrecht (The Netherlands) on 13th and 14th June 2019. We welcomed approximately 75 participants from 15 countries (Australia, Belgium, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Luxembourg, Norway, Poland, Portugal, The Republic of Serbia, Slovenia, Turkey, The Netherlands, UK) and the European Commission.

EHFCN is very grateful to NZa for its warm hospitality, the excellent organisation and the tremendous amount of precious and innovative expertise exchanged. During this inspiring Open House, we learned more about innovative healthcare supervision in The Netherlands and were taken on a journey through time and risk-based supervision. What started five years ago by developing specific strategies and imposing the highest administrative fine for a healthcare provider in Dutch history, has finally resulted in self regulation for nearly all hospitals in the Netherlands. A multidisciplinary approach and a lot of creativity enabled them to achieve these results. The different stages of this process were discussed further in the workshops.

We also shared a very interesting keynote of Mr Vassilis Plagianakos, President of EOPYY (Greece) on Providing support regarding the development and implementation of tools based on AI for countering or preventing fraud, corruption and waste.

The stand of affairs on the EHFCN Project on Promoting Integrity in the Healthcare Sector was presented, with the distribution of the first draft Introduction to the Guidelines by the Group of Experts.  They received the approval for continuation and including the project as a common thread in the context of the 15th anniversary celebrations of the Network in 2020.

There were also very important decisions taken during the General Assembly Ordinary Session on 13th June:

  • The election of Vassilis Plagianakos, President of EOPYY, as new president of EHFCN
  • The approval of the extension of the EHFCN Team with the following competences and persons :
    • Legal Advise: Dimitra Lingri, Head of the Legal Department of EOPYY (Greece) will focus on legal support.
    • EU Funding and grants: Alessandro Fiorenza, Coordinator for the fight against fraud and enforcement policy at INTERMUT (member NIC-CIN), will be in charge of finding EU funding and grants.
    • Expertise on Corruption: Laura Roberto Ferrario, Voluntary Researcher at ISPE Sanità, will provide precious expertise and support on the topic of corruption.

On Day 2 (14th June) were elected the 2 final winners of the 2019 EHFCN New Ways & Innovation Award, who will present their case during a dedicated keynote at the occasion of the 13th EHFCN International Conference that will be hosted in Berlin (Germany) by GKV-Spitzenverband. The 2 final winners are:

  1. EOPYY (National Organisation for Healthcare Services Provision, Greece): The uncovering of a big fraud case using the data and tools of the new EOPYY medical devices and FSMP’s REGISTRY.
  2. IGAS (General Inspectorate of Health, Portugal): IGAS’ Antifraud Unit: a project of intelligence-led inspecting and auditing, focused on prevention and combating fraud.

Last but not least, we had a very interesting Experience Exchange Marketplace encouraging the  informal sharing of expertise.

We thank all the participants for actively contributing to achieving the goals of the network.

With kind regards,

Nathalie De Wulf, Managing Director EHFCN 

Ask us anything: office@ehfcn.org

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