The pharmaceutical system of the Netherlands and Applying it in Practice

In the year 2008 the project “Development of indicators for assessing pharmaceutical care in Europe” was launched by the European Directorate for the Quality of Medicines & Health Care (EDQM) (Council of Europe) with the objectives to develop pharmaceutical care indicators and the promotion of their use. In the course of the project, topic groups led by scientific collaborators were formed in order to explore already existing indicators and pharmaceutical care practices in a scoping exercise. The results of the scoping exercise undertaken by the Gesundheit Osterreich GmbH / Geschaftsbereich Osterreichisches Bundesinstitut fur Gesundheitswesen (GOG/OBIG) which has the lead in the topic group “Health systems: policy aspects: Understanding the pharmaceutical care concept and applying it in practice” were presented in an expert workshop in Strasbourg on 19 November 2009 where possible indicators to be developed were discussed. The aim of the present report is to understand the integration of the pharmaceutical care concept within a health system, by identifying concrete pharmaceutical care practices which could serve as good practice models for other countries. A two-step methodological approach was undertaken, which included a literature review and a case study survey.