Members of Working Group 1 and of the Core Group of COST Action Ca 15222 CostCares organised a two-day meeting at the Valletta Campus in Valletta. Professor Sandra C. Buttigieg, Leader of Working Group 1 organised the event. Professor Inger Ekman, Chair of CostCares described the Malta meeting as a very well organised and fruitful meeting.
The main aim of this action is to give impetus to the essential Research and Development (R&D) effort necessary to drive cost containment in healthcare while maintaining and improving the quality of care.
The CostCares Action proposes and investigates better integration of care in everyday lives, focusing on health promotion and partnership with patients in their health decisions. CostCares predicts that proactive people towards their health will dramatically decrease the cost of healthcare in general.
The Action aims to test special facilities that will improve guidelines for 'Person centred care', a term coined by the researchers that proposes treating patients as equal partners in their care process. Now patients are mostly passive receivers of care instead of active partners in their own care. The CostCares action members think that this approach should extend beyond, and provide a more everyday approach to care. CostCares, funded by the COST Association, is a continuation of the WeCare project, an EU initiative to develop a long term Strategic plan and R&D roadmap on cost containment of healthcare, with maintained or improved quality.
The links to the Action are:
