A Rheumatologist Contributing to the Sustainability, Affordability and Equity of Healthcare

Annelies Boonen is professor of rheumatology and head of the Department of Rheumatology at Maastricht University Medical Centre. She’s interested in the socio-economic aspects of inflammatory rheumatic diseases.

On the one hand, insights into the cost-effectiveness of making diagnoses and treating patients are important to keep healthcare affordable. Such models are often complex and their quality highly depends on clinical experience with the disease and its management combined with data knowledge from epidemiological and clinical studies. Therefore, rheumatologist are in the best position to lead the development of such models.

On the other hand, socio-economic determinants on both country and individual level should receive attention when we aim to uncover the socio-economic gap in health outcomes. Boonen advocates that health-economic evaluations of innovations (and adaptation of care to patients' specific socio-economic background and health literacy skills) will not only contribute to the sustainability but also to the affordability and equity of healthcare.