Belgian government wants EBM highway

24/03/17

According to the Artsenkrant, minister of Social Affairs and Health Maggie De Block wants all physicians and health care providers to get Evidence-Based Medicine (EBM) at the fingertips. A concept note written by the Policy Unit of the minister is investigating how the development of guidelines for clinical practice can be streamlined and how EBM sources can be available for free for every health care provider. A federal steering group Evidence-Based Practice will designate the fields that should get priority in the development and dissemination of guidelines and will follow the work in the field.

The current Working Group Primary Care Guidelines (of which CEBaP is a member) will get a new task description and will overlook the mapping, adaptation and development of guidelines. The actual development of new guidelines will be consigned to a consortium with a balanced representation of different universities, scientific organisations, etc. The management will be centralized by the Belgian Health Care Knowledge Centre (KCE).

Currently a study is being conducted by KCE, with the aim to develop a national governance, dissemination and implementation plan for EBP in Belgium. The study will be finished in June 2017, and the national EBP plan will be implemented from January 2018.

With this model, Belgium might become the first country where all healthcare providers get free access to EBM-sources through their electronic dossier.