title: Obtaining health care in another European Union Member State: how easy is it to find relevant information?
abstract: The European Union Directive on cross-border health care places an obligation on member states (MSs) to establish one or more national contact points (NCPs). We evaluated whether MSs were meeting their legal obligations. Two researchers created a set of criteria, drawn from the Directive, to evaluate the information that 18 MSs provide on their NCP websites. Some 15 of the 18 MSs evaluated provided >75% of the information sought. This report shows examples of best practices that could be used to encourage other MSs to improve the quality and quantity of information provided.
authors.affiliation: 1 Institute of Hygiene, Catholic University of Sacred Heart, Rome, Italy alessio.santoro@lshtm.ac.uk.
authors.forename: Alessio
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Santoro
authors.affiliation: 2 Institute of Hygiene, Catholic University of Sacred Heart, Rome, Italy.
authors.forename: Andrea
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Silenzi
authors.affiliation: 3 Institute of Hygiene, Catholic University of Sacred Heart, Rome, Italy.
authors.forename: Walter
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Ricciardi
authors.affiliation: 4 Faculty of Public Health and Policy, European Centre on Health of Societies in Transition, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, London, United Kingdom.
authors.forename: Martin
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: McKee
mesh_terms: D005062:European Union; D006801:Humans; D057193:Medical Tourism / Q000331:legislation & jurisprudence* / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*