Future priorities for health services research in Europe

Health care policy-makers in European countries face a number of major challenges, including the ageing of the population and the economic sustainability of health care systems. A recently launched policy brief provides an overview of main directions for future research that can assist in making evidence-informed policy decisions.

Health services research plays an important role in supporting Europe’s need to innovate to meet the health care demands of its ageing populations. This importance was identified by the European Commission, which through its Seventh Framework Programme funded a special support action, Health Services Research into European Policy & Practice (HSREPP). The project was carried out by NIVEL in collaboration with four major European health services research institutes. Its aim was to identify, evaluate and improve the contribution of health services research to the health policy process at national and European level, and thus help optimize the delivery of health care services to European citizens.

The policy brief is one of the key outcomes of the project, providing an overview of key priorities in European health services research. These include:
• The need for more research on the effects of health care reforms on major health outcomes, such as changing the funding of health insurance or privatisation of care.
• The need for better understanding the optimal relationship between hospital care, primary care and community care in order to ensure service provision that is safer, of higher quality and more patient-centred.
• The need for research into new approaches to health technology assessment and to the economic and organisational consequences of introducing health technologies.
• The need for improved effectiveness and efficiency of performance indicators and their linkage to other governance policies.
• The need for increased understanding of how HSR is being undertaken and used in different countries.

In addition, to improve the use of research in policy, a number of strategies need to be developed further, including a better balance between different types of research funding, the involvement of policy-makers in early stages of the research process and tools to avoid the duplication of studies in different countries, for example on the effectiveness of care provision, and learning from best examples regarding rapid assessments of research evidence.

As Johan Hansen, project coordinator, explains, ‘the project also showed that countries can differ considerably in the level of capacity available for health services research. We have therefore committed ourselves to continued capacity and community building in HSR. One way is by creating new activities where experts can meet and share experiences; the other is by means of providing a clearing-house function on European HSR. Our website www.healthservicesresearch.eu offers an overview of activities as well as the possibility to register for its newsletter and keep up to date about relevant HSR projects that will be conducted.’