The Future of European Health Care Systems

 

On the 5th of November 2008 the first "European Congress" of the TK took place at the headquarters of TK in Hamburg in cooperation with the "European Health Management Association" in Brussels (EHMA). The title of the one-day congress was "The Future of the European Health Care Systems" aiming at fostering the share of knowledge and experience on a European level concerning health policy issues. At the same time TK sought to generate a forum for the international discussion of the considerable changes in German health care caused by the latest health care reform in 2009.

 

Speakers and Participants

The nearly 300 congress participants from 19 countries (including non-European countries like the USA, Mexico, Russia and Nigeria) had the opportuntiy to experience the inspiring debate of leading experts from academia and from the field in the USA, the UK, the Netherlands, Italy, Austria and the Czech Republic. Among them were representatives from the Technische Universität Berlin (Prof. Reinhard Busse) as well as of the world’s two leading Universities of Social Sciences, Harvard University (Prof. Thomas Mc Guire) and the London School of Economics and Political Science (Prof. Alistair McGuire). The experts focused basically on the following health policy questions:

 

• What are the main policy trends in the current wave of health care reforms in the represented EU member states: free market economy or state regulation?

• How is cross-border healthcare in the EU member states being implemented today?

• What influence do European health policy and the European health market have on the health care systems of the represented EU member states?

• What basic elements should a future best-possible implementation of the represented health care systems in the EU member states incorporate?

 

Feedback

The feedback concerning the first "European Congress" was throughout positive: the speakers, the participants and the press perceived it as an important contribution to the national and international health policy discussion and thus appraised it as a great success. The new findings enabled TK, to give German and European health policy fresh impetus for the benefit of its insurants. Therefore TK and its "Scientific Institute for Benefit and Efficiency in Health Care" (WINEG) decided to create a regular congress series. The next "European Congress" will take place in May 2011.