Communication of trustworthy information to Belgian healthcare professionals and patients

Author: Dr Trudy Bekkering, Deborah Seys, Nancy Durieux and Marleen Corremans.
Belgium
Diagram showing how trustworthy evidence is communicated to health care professionals and patients in Belgium. Includes the JBI Model of Evidence-based Healthcare.

Belgian healthcare professionals feel evidence-based practice (EBP) helps taking decisions, inform patients and improves quality of care. Information in their own language and contextualized to the Belgian context is appreciated.

Thus, healthcare professionals need access to trustworthy information. Several Belgian organizations evaluate, translate, contextualize or collate trustworthy information to fill this gap. Patients value shared decision making. Belgian organisations provide information specific for patients, which can be used by healthcare professionals. Also, the general public needs to learn how to distinguish facts from fake information on health. However, several challenges remain.