Care-related policy: The Netherlands

The policy of the government is to stimulate older people to live longer in their own environment; stimulate independence and autonomy of the older people; reinforce home care. Also the government aims at improving the quality of care and services, improved effectiveness and/or efficiency of care services, demand-driven care, more user-friendliness, services better adapted to the needs of older people or disabled people. A key-issue of the Dutch government policy for 2002 is creating preconditions to promote a broad and efficient use of ICT in the healthcare, to improve the quality of care and the transparency of care processes. There is an action plan ICT in the care sector 2002.

Another key-issue for the government ICT Platform in Health Care is the introduction of a Care Card, which provides access to the electronic patient record. The new Protection Personal Data Act in the Netherlands ensures the consumer can see and control his/her own data in the system. The aims of the Care Card is to exchange medical information. But because of the attention for this product, other fields have been given less attention.

Dominant problems in the ICT-related care sector include the following:

• There is less money to start a project or initiative;
• There is no substantial market like the market for e.g. mobile phones;
• The organisation of care is not suitable. Health organisations are used to operate separate. For large-scale ICT-application the organisations need to cooperage;
• The technology is not user-friendly;
• The fear of social workers and patients to work with ICT products;
• The fear of professional health-care workers that their services are not needed any more.

In the Netherlands several pieces of legislation deal with the provision of services to disabled people. One piece of legislation provides specifically for the provision of AT and under this act, all Dutch citizens have the right to equipment and technical devices if medically indicated. There are several institutions and offices involved in the AT service delivery process, all institutions dealing with one aspect: work and education, transport and mobility, care and public care.

Findings from the country report indicate that community alarm services are widely available to elderly people. Some telecommunications-based services are available to visually impaired and deaf people in the Netherlands. With regard to visually impaired people, they receive assistance towards the costs of voice synthesis equipment and Braille displays for use at home. Deaf people can use a text telephone.