The ’Cross-border healthcare’ working group of EUREGHA network reloaded

The EUREGHA network uniting European local and regional health authorities and institutions involved in cross-border healthcare relaunched its working group dedicated to exchange of information and knowledge and the development of joint project ideas on cross-border healthcare. CESCI is one of the members of the WG since 2021 based on the decision of the General Assembly.

In 2022, the working group held two meetings. The first, constitutional meeting held online on 4 February enabled the members of the network to present their past and planned activities and exchange their ideas regarding the joint initiatives for the year of 2022. The participants agreed about the organisation of an online meeting with the representative of the DG REGIO, Valeria Cenacchi, the presentation of the working group at the annual meeting of the EUREGHA network scheduled to June in Bari, Italy, as well as the update of information related to the network’s activities at the EU Health Policy Platform.

The online meeting with Valeria Cenacchi was held on 3 March. First, the participating institutions (Lower Austria, the EUPrevent, the CBI Institute, CESCI, the Health Department from Northern Ireland and the German Speaking Community of Belgium), presented their activities and their plans for the future. After this, Valeria Cenacchi summarised the most recent activities of the Commission (evaluation of the Health Directive, the B-Solutions projects, the REGI Committee’s Report on Interreg, capitalisation, design of the future 97 cooperation programmes, the EC Report on CBC adopted in 2021, etc.). She also mentioned two upcoming documents, namely the follow-up study of the ESPON Cross-Border Public Services project, a study on patient mobility to be published by DG SANTÉ; and the plan to set a CB Health Data Space.

The members of the EUREGHA network urged to move forward from piloting CB health projects towards mainstreaming, and discussed the potential topics and activities of a future joint project on CB health.