Van patiëntenrechten naar patiëntenwaarden

Abstract

From patients' rights to patients' values In 2022, the Patient’s Rights Act will be 20 years old. This Act has created a permanent recognition of the central position of the patient and his autonomy within the Belgian healthcare system. The Act did undergo some limited changes, but generally remained the same. Nevertheless, the evolution of the healthcare reveals new points of interest and demands attention to so-called patient values, namely quality, care innovation and patient participation. These patient values also reflect the critics formulated on the Patient’s Rights Act. The Belgian patient’s rights framework today consists of a number of other regulations besides the Patient’s Rights Act itself. All these regulations currently form a diffuse patient’s rights framework. In order to guarantee the central position of patient’s rights in our health care system for the next 20 years, a new approach of patient’s rights protection through the patient values is suggested in this article, focusing on quality, care innovation and patient participation and based on the existing legal patient’s rights framework.