Quality of Life and Health | NWO

Quality of life is another word for well-being. Quality of life plays an important role in many issues in the healthcare sector, for example: which treatments should be included in the basic health insurance package? Do some (very expensive) life-prolonging treatments provide enough benefit to be eligible for collective funding? Is a new prototype of a medical instrument sufficiently interesting to be further developed for market introduction? Should certain specialist care be concentrated in a single centre, or conversely, should it be decentralised? How far must a healthcare institution go in facilitating the independence of residents and their informal carers?

Amongst other things, the programme aims to provide a better description of the term quality of life and healthcare (flyer, programme text). The programme will also ensure the optimum and appropriate measurement of quality of life for evaluations of innovations (new products, treatments, organisation of care, instruments, technologies et cetera) and for supporting policy. Ethical discussions that play a role in quality of life are also being investigated, such as expensive treatments for rare diseases.