Medical Delta Program ‘Prehabilitation: catalyst for healthcare transformation’

Our healthcare system is currently primarily focused on treating diseases in people. If we instead direct the system toward health, lifestyle, and living environment with the goal of ensuring that people can participate and matter, regardless of diseases or disabilities, this will help further transform the healthcare system toward health, behavior, and appropriate care for everyone. This contributes to keeping high-quality health and care available, humane, and affordable for all.

According to the Integral Healthcare Agreement (IZA), impactful healthcare transformation toward health and appropriate care occurs at the regional level. Prehabilitation can play a pioneering role in promoting health and appropriate care. Through prehabilitation, people enter a surgery or treatment process as healthy and fit as possible, aiming to emerge from it in the same condition. Prehabilitation programs specifically focus on the health, lifestyle, living environment of individuals, and their ability to participate and matter.  

Blueprint for further transformation

The Medical Delta Program ‘Prehabilitation: catalyst for healthcare transformation’ specifically focuses on the adoption and utilization of scientifically validated, personalized prehabilitation in the Zuid-Holland Medical Delta region. The involved program consortium primarily targets lifestyle and environmental adjustments for individuals who have a relatively high health risk and are preparing for a major surgery, such as those related to cancer, heart disease, or transplantation. Through these use cases, the program consortium, along with many others, is creating a movement and blueprint for further transformation of our health and care system

The program monitors and evaluates the cost-effectiveness (efficiency and effectiveness) of prehabilitation in the daily interdisciplinary practice of the perioperative process that encompasses the primary, secondary, and tertiary care levels. To this end, the consortium partners collectively implement prehabilitation in Zuid-Holland. With the support of epidemiologists and data technology from the Medical Delta Living Lab Data-supported healthcare, the program generates evidence from practice, also known as 'experience-based evidence.' Collaboration with the Medical Delta living labs and programs, including the Medical Delta Living Lab Better In, Better Out & Beyond, increases the chances of success

The program thus serves as a catalyst for the cultural shift towards health, lifestyle, and living environment, participation, and meaningful engagement, stemming from targeted indicated preventive care and prehabilitation. The social domain, healthcare institutions, and professionals are involved in the lives and environments of individuals with the mentioned conditions and their caregivers. It requires a change in behavior from organizations and professionals to ensure that health, lifestyle, living environment, participation, and meaningful engagement become the norm before, during, and after treatments. 

Goals

Contact

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