Collaboration of WHO Collaborating Centres: under construction

On 14/10/2011 the three WHO Collaborating Centres on Primary Health Care based in Europe and a representative of the WHO Regional Office for Europe gathered in Ghent (Belgium) to get acquaintanced with each other’s work and to explore future collaborations.

The “A. Stampar” School of Public Health in Zagreb (Croatia) was designated as a WHO Collaborating Centre for Primary Care in 1983; the Netherlands Institute for Health Services Research (NIVEL) in Utrecht (The Netherlands) in 1987 and the International Centre of Primary Health Care and Family Medicine – Ghent University (Belgium) in 2010.

During the meeting staff members of the three Centres committed to work jointly on different topics in primary health care such as developments on mental health, non communicable diseases, the articulation between primary and secondary care and inequity by disease. Concerning the latter an inventory of cases describing the phenomenon that in some health care systems access to services and the quality of the provided care is conditioned by the diagnosis of the patient, will be made. Further, workshops on the theme will be organised on international conferences. This will result in a conceptual paper on this topic.

The three partners also agreed to meet annually to keep each other informed on their work, to exchange ideas and to set up jointly activities.