Sector

Healthcare

In the healthcare sector every plan immediately gets complicated (the best laid plans...), whether it be cooperation, financing, tendering, liabilities, permits, accreditations, etc. Even before a project gets off the ground, you have to factor in the different formalities and procedures. What can you do? Well, as they say, better to be safe than sorry, and if you have experts to help you see the bigger picture, it can save you a lot of time, money and worries.

At GSJ advocaten, the healthcare law team are familiar with all the legal practices that are connected with healthcare institutions, healthcare providers, patients and other parties.

Thanks to our many years of experience with cases involving the healthcare sector, we see where the problem lies. With every passing day the world is becoming more and more complex for healthcare institutions. Here are a few of the challenges they face: meeting the needs and desires of employees and patients, providing efficient healthcare, complying with all the laws, decrees and regulations, creating partnerships and assigning appropriate roles to administrative bodies. In addition, a number of albeit positive societal changes have occurred that have not necessarily made things easier for these institutions. For example, patients are increasingly being referred to and regarded as clients. Secondly, employees are now demanding that a better balance be struck between work and leisure time, while healthcare institutions are required to provide round-the-clock care. Clearly, there's more to healthcare than the strictly legalistic aspects. For this reason, we tend not to use the simple expression "medical law"; instead we see healthcare law as a potential answer to a series of important issues facing the healthcare sector.

To get results, it's definitely quicker and better for all those involved in the healthcare sector to get advice from experts who have in-depth knowledge of the different legal requirements and can see the bigger picture. At GSJ, each individual lawyer works on the basis of his own specialisation. However, all our lawyers work as a team, and all the teams work together and consult each other every step of the way to ensure the necessary exchange of knowledge and experience.

Furthermore, GSJ advocaten constantly makes great efforts to share its know-how with the outside world. Talks by guest speakers from GSJ are a regular feature at the "Event for the Care Sector", and GSJ organises numerous series of lectures, including presentations on various topics for LOKs (Lokaal Overleg Kinderopvang) and for ECD Paradox and the Flanders Dementia Expertise Centre on the rights of dementia sufferers.

On 26 September 2013, a special academic session was organised at the University of Antwerp at which a tremendous new initiative was launched, namely the AHLEC (Antwerp Health Law and Ethics Chair), the brainchild of Dr. Thierry Vansweevelt, a professor of Health Law at the University of Antwerp, and Willeke Dijkhoffz, a director working for the hospital and residential care group GZA. GSJ advocaten is sponsoring this initiative and is part of the steering committee of AHLEC.