Pain as a Health Quality Indicator

We ask to explore opportunities to build on existing instruments which are available to define, establish and/or use pain as an indicator in the assessment of healthcare systems’ quality and thus contribute to assessing the societal impact of pain and build on existing initiatives and opportunities to fill the data gap on the societal impact of pain.

We call on the European Commission to:

• Work on addressing the gap in the European Core Healthcare Indicators project, leveraging the inclusion of chronic pain in the 11th Revision of the International Classification of Diseases (ICD-11) and promote implementation of ICD-11 at national level.
• Assess the possibility to include work on a European Core Healthcare Indicator on Pain in existing projects such as the Joint Action on Health Information.
• Together with the OECD, present pain as a key indicator of health and health systems and analyse the links between population health and labour market outcomes in Health at a Glance: Europe 2020.
• To repeat and broaden the 2006 Health Eurobarometer which included musculoskeletal pain and consult civil society for survey expertise.

We call on Member States to:

• Establish quality indicators to set criteria for granting access to cross-border healthcare and ensuring comprehensive electronic health records.
• Ensure proper implementation of the ICD-11 so that data on chronic pain will be available to build European Core Healthcare Indicator on Pain.
• Ensure the implementation Article 8.5 of the European Commission Directive on cross- border healthcare for pain patients.