Cross-border health and emergency services (based on the results of b-solutions and beyond)

Balogh, Péter (2024) Cross-border health and emergency services (based on the results of b-solutions and beyond). JOURNAL OF ADVANCED STUDIES ON BORDERS COOPERATION AND DEVELOPMENT. pp. 55-67. ISSN 3057-9872

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Abstract

While healthcare has traditionally been a national competence, the increasing needs of aging populations and the lessons of recent pandemics have pushed the European Union toward a more integrated "European Health Union". The research highlights that the primary barriers to seamless cooperation are legal and administrative, often resulting from inconsistent transpositions of EU law or national regulations that fail to account for the unique daily needs of border region inhabitants. These obstacles manifest as burdensome reimbursement procedures, incompatible data systems that prevent the sharing of patient records, and technical discrepancies in emergency vehicle standards. Notably, the study points out that emergency response can be delayed because national call centres often ignore more proximate hospitals located just across a border. To address these challenges, b-solutions has proposed a variety of interventions, ranging from local administrative centres - such as the Austrian-Czech reimbursement office - to broader legal frameworks like the proposed Cross-Border Facilitation Tool (CBFT). The CBFT is designed to allow Member States to voluntarily derogate from standard national rules for specific cross-border projects, potentially formalizing the problem-solving approach pioneered by b-solutions. However, the article also offers critical reflections on initiativeb-solutions, noting a significant geographical bias toward West-Central and Southwestern Europe and a relative lack of focus on emerging private and public-private healthcare solutions. Ultimately, the paper concludes that while the EU is moving toward more integrated health systems, the current legal frameworks remain more suited for occasional travellers than for the structural needs of the 150 million citizens living in borderlands.

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