Cooperations with regional impact
Working together is the only way in which we can provide the right care in the right place and reduce health disparities. In the Dutch Integral Healthcare Agreement (IZA), cooperation is therefore central. Together with our partners we also took worthwhile steps with a regional impact in 2023.
Medical specialist care in the region
In 2023 all regional healthcare and well-being stakeholders together with healthcare insurance companies and municipalities delivered a Regional Mapping and a Regional Plan . In the Regional Mapping for the province of Utrecht, the biggest task for the coming years concerns the health of citizens.
Even before the Dutch Integral Healthcare Agreement (IZA) started, hospitals in the region already relied on each other to ensure that medical specialist care in the Utrecht region of remained of high quality, efficient, and accessible.
It is our common goal now and in the future to provide the most suitable medical specialist care. We are convinced that this can only happen if we work together intensively and in an innovative way, whereby UMC Utrecht would add specific value as an academic knowledge and innovation center for and with the region.
Regional vision on innovation in line with regional network care
In 2023, to mutually accelerate the IZA tasks, we defined our common ambitions with St. Antonius Hospital, Meander MC, and Diakones center in a joint administrative framework for IZA with five topics: acute care, concentration and distribution of medical specialist care, care for the elderly, the labor market, and training and digitalization. Together, with healthcare professionals in the lead, we will continue to work out plans for this in the coming years.
As basis for this collaboration we have together established a vision that serves as guideline for establishing our plan. The dot on the horizon that we thereby formulated is the movement towards coherent, innovative network care, in which healthcare is concentrated transmurally on the patient. A strong education and research structure forms part of this network care to ensure an innovative and attractive region. On this component as well, we deliver our added value as an innovation driver for a strong region. A role that is also recognized and appreciated by our partners. As partners we have not only fixed a substantive dot on the horizon, we have also established a mutual relational contract by agreeing on guiding principles for our actions within this vision. These principles form the touchstone for everything that we establish jointly in the collaboration process. We see this new way of working as an important aspect of the movement that we must start in the scope of the IZA. The ‘how’ of our collaboration is as important, if not more important, than the ‘what’.
The administrative framework forms the basis of the IZA task Appropriate Medical Specialist Care in the region. Based on the framework, we shall continue dynamically with the collaboration in 2024, and intend jointly to translate the tasks in the Regional Plan for Central Netherlands into concrete plans for medical-specialist care and the implementation thereof. To do so, we are naturally working closely with all stakeholders in the region, such as general practitioners, nursing and care homes and home care, municipalities, mental health organizations, and healthcare insurance companies.
These plans were of course already prepared in 2023, and will further become a reality in 2024:
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The Regioplan for acute care will be worked out further within ROAZ.
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In terms of concentration and distribution, we are currently establishing a vascular surgery network and further developing our oncology network OncoMid to contribute further to the quality and accessibility of healthcare. OncoMid is an example of an innovative form of network care that can also serve countrywide as an example to address the IZA tasks.
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We are further intensifying the collaboration with St Antonius Hospital in the field of cardiothoracic surgery, where we work as a single heart team.
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Together with regional partners we have started projects around patient groups for trauma geriatrics and Parkinson's disease.
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For the vision of an attractive labor market and innovative training programs, hospitals are working for example with UtrechtZorg and its partners on adequate training places for scarce professions such as OR assistants and nurses. In this respect there is also close collaboration with Hogeschool Utrecht and MBO programs.
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Together with TRIJN we are laying the digital foundations for the region in terms of data exchange and support for regional healthcare programs.
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To ensure that healthcare remains appropriate and accessible, we contribute – together with general practitioners, ROAZ and IVVU – to making plans to ensure that older people can live at home in good health for longer, and to provide the right care in the right place.
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To ensure that this care remains appropriate and affordable, we contribute together with general practitioners, ROAZ, and IVVU to plans for keeping elderly people at home for longer and more healthily, and for the right care in the right place.
Health Hub Utrecht: health and happiness for everyone in Utrecht
UMC Utrecht together with the municipality of Utrecht is an active member of Health Hub Utrecht : a ‘regional innovation ecosystem for health and happiness’. The thirty partners in Health Hub Utrecht have the joint objective to make health and happiness available to everyone in Utrecht. For this, we are working on six coalitions. In 2023 the coalitions started with phase 2, ‘Covering the distance’ (‘Meters maken’). In this phase the coalitions are putting their plans into action. Within the coalitions, various members of Health Hub Utrecht are working together. Through various groups, participants can make use of each other’s knowledge and expertise and thus achieve the best result for everyone in the Utrecht region. In 2023 UMC Utrecht together with Utrecht University and Hogeschool Utrecht also further professionalized the knowledge table within the Health Hub, just like the businesses table in cooperation with ROM Utrecht and the inhabitants table together with municipalities.
Cartesius Utrecht: building a healthy neighbourhood
As UMC Utrecht we want to contribute to improving public health. We do this through innovative research and education, and through healthcare. Not only in hospital beds, but also in terms of prevention and improving the habitat in neighborhoods. In July 2023 we signed the covenant ‘Building a Healthy Neighborhood’, during the symbolic start of construction of 770 new homes in the Cartesius healthy city district in the heart of Utrecht.
In the covenant ‘Building a Healthy Neighborhood’, UMC Utrecht works with ‘Cartesius consortium’ Ballast Nedam Development, MRP, Hogeschool Utrecht, Utrecht Municipality and Utrecht University on a countrywide monitoring program that focuses on studying the relationship between layout of the (living) environment, first-line healthcare organizations, and health. The aim is to get insight into which actions in the physical and healthcare environment contribute positively to health and the well-being of inhabitants. Cartesius Utrecht is the first place where this is being measured. The aim is to upscale the blueprint of the monitoring program to more locations in the Netherlands. The World Health Organization (WHO) has also joined the initiative. This organization looks at whether these measures can also have a real impact on the state of mind and health of inhabitants. The WHO decided this during the trade mission of the Economic Board Utrecht (EBU) in Copenhagen. UMC Utrecht is one of the ambassadors of EBU. Cartesius Utrecht contributes to the international reputation of Utrecht as the 'Heart of Health'.
Watch the video 'Cartesius - Healthy Urban Living'.
Oncomid: the best care for people with cancer in the region
To give people with cancer the best care in the right place, we work with other hospitals in the Central Netherlands in the regional oncological network Oncomid . These multidisciplinary team meetings (MDO in Dutch or MDT in English) are the backbone of our cooperation: locally if it can, and regionally where it is necessary and useful. Good logistics and organization is the first requirement for a thorough MDT. In 2023 we therefore used the Vitality 2.0 platform for two regional MDTs. The intention is to do so for more regional MDCs in 2024.
Sharing data for optimal healthcare in the Central Netherlands
To support cooperations, UMC Utrecht is working on solutions to facilitate healthcare professionals and researchers effectively. For instance via the innovative Data Delen Midden-Nederland program , an initiative from cooperating hospitals in the Utrecht region and the Dutch federation of mutual insurers (Zorgverzekeraars Nederland). In the summer of 2023 the IT solution from Data Delen Midden-Nederland supported the first regional multidisciplinary team meetings (MDTs). And by the end of 2023, all technical integrations were in use. The adoption by regional oncological MDTs thus got underway. There is a lot of interest countrywide for the Data Delen Midden Nederland program. We are keen to share this knowledge with organizations that are facing the same challenges. The Dutch federation of healthcare insurers, Zorgverzekeraars Nederland VECOZO, a stakeholder that facilitates the safe and efficient exchange of administrative information in healthcare, even requested that what is learned and invented at Utrecht should be made available countrywide as quickly as possible.
Expansion of network care in the Utrecht region
At the Transmural Contact and Coordination Center (TCC) UMC Utrecht is working on the expansion of network care for patients in the Utrecht region. We do this by optimizing cooperation between healthcare professionals of UMC Utrecht and of the regional GP organizations and hospitals. In 2023 for instance we: cleaned up the referral platform ZorgDomein, implemented teleconsultation, and analyzed over eight transmural incident reports. In addition, healthcare professionals cooperated from within UMC Utrecht in bringing about various Regional Transmural (Work) Agreements (RTAs) and we started with the implementation thereof at UMC Utrecht. Together with healthcare professionals from the region, we are working on seven care-innovation trajectories, including the testing ground ‘Thinking warmly about patients in the palliative phase’. The method has now been taken up widely in the region.
UMC Utrecht is also a member of the Regional Cooperation Organization (RSO) TRIJN and thus contributes to offering the right care in the right place. This is done by cooperating with healthcare stakeholders from the Utrecht region, such as hospitals, regional GP organizations, nursing and care homes and home-care organizations (VVTs), pharmacists, and diagnostic laboratories. The focus is on projects in the field of digital data exchange and healthcare communication with inhabitants/patients. In 2023, TRIJN was given the role of coordinator of the foundation ‘digitalization and data exchange’ of the IZA regional plan. The main topics that will be tackled in the coming years are: expansion of digital communication, (acute) e-transfer, a vision of remote monitoring (which is part of hybrid care and regional medical service center), and the foundation task (establishing the data and application architecture in steps). Besides the development of a vision for regional digitalization, attention is also given to: digital communication between general practitioners and medical specialists, drawing up and implementing regional transmural (working) agreements, and collaborating on improvement trajectories in the field of patient safety within a platform for the transmural reporting of incidents (TIM: Reporting Transmural Incidents).
Qualitatively outstanding gynecological care with Bergman Clinics
For many years we worked successfully with Bergman Clinics in the field of uro-gynecology and cervix pathology. This cooperation was expanded in 2023 to the domain of general gynecology. In this way we are contributing further to the accessibility, quality, and affordability of healthcare.
Furthering health with FC Utrecht
For a number of years already we have been working with FC Utrecht and other knowledge and educational institutions to further the health and vitality of people and society. For example in May 2023 for the second time we led the joint campaign ‘Wear this Band 2.0’ for the prevention of cardiovascular disorders. On December 1, 2023 we signed a partnership and officially joined the FC Utrecht partnership platform FC Utrecht Next .
Understanding the impact of sleep
Sleep is essential for our well-being and functioning. On World Sleep Day, March 17, 2023, the Sleep Discovery Lab was officially launched to gather scientific knowledge on the origin, evolution, and functions of sleep. In this lab, we work from within UMC Utrecht and Wilhelmina Children’s Hospital (WKZ) together with researchers from Princess Máxima Center , the 030-lab , De Hoogstraat Revalidatie , the Strategic Alliance TUeTU/e, WUR, UU and UMC Utrecht and a number of somnologists countrywide. Together we are developing understanding of the impact of sleep on the development of premature children, brain development in newborns, the functioning of the immune system, and the origin and course of diseases in children and adults.
