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| NEED is a 3-year research project aiming to identify and measure unmet health-related needs for a more needs-driven healthcare policy and innovation. |
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Newsletter #6Summer 2025 |
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The NEED team is continuing important methodological work, including the development of the standardised NEED research protocol, including practical data collection tools, and an evaluation framework for the pediatric population. Summer 2025 is marked by the NEED - Psychotic Disorders study, performed in collaboration with the KULeuven (Belgium) and the active recruitment of patients.
Last but not least, we wish Christina Fischer, who performed an internship with us, all the best for the future. Happy reading! The NEED team
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| Patient recruitment for the NEED-study on the assessment of unmet health-related needs in individuals with psychotic disorders has started. Recruitment is being carried out in close collaboration with a team at the KULeuven. All relevant information regarding the recruitment process can be found here.
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| NEED presentations
| | Presentation in the picureOn June 3rd, 2025, Irina Cleemput participated as a speaker in an HTAi webinar organized by the Rare Diseases Interest Group (RDIG), entitled “Assessing Unmet Needs in Rare Diseases: Can the NEED Framework Enhance the HTA Process?” The event featured contributions from KCE, Canada’s Drug Agency, RDIG, and included a dynamic panel discussion with representatives from EURORDIS, industry, and other stakeholders. The discussion underlined the added value of using a structured framework like NEED to improve the assessment of unmet health-related needs in the context of health technology assessment (HTA). While evidence for several NEED criteria remains limited or lacking, applying the framework could encourage the collection of more relevant data. A key takeaway was the critical need for better collaboration and centralisation of existing patient narratives to make this information more actionable and usable for policy and regulatory decision-making. | | | |
Other presentations On the 22nd of May, Charline Maertens presented the NEED project at the “Workshop on the Belgian Healthcare System” organized by MedTech Accelerator. On the 27th and 28th May, a delegation from Slovakia visited Belgium to learn from our experience in developing Health System Performance Assessment reports and indicators. As part of the visit, Charline presented the NEED project to the delegation. - On the 17th of June, we discussed the NEED project and its value at The King Baudouin Foundation.
On June 26th, Julie Paradis gave a presentation at the joint EACD/IAACD conference (European Academy of Childhood-onset Disability / International Alliance of Academies of Childhood Disability) in Heidelberg, Germany. Her presentation focused on the current progress in adapting the framework for the paediatric population and was entitled “NEED Paediatric Assessment Framework".
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| New publication | We are very happy to share our new scientific publication on one of our first pilot studies on Crohn’s disease in Archives of Public Health. The paper highlights some major unmet health-related needs for patients with this condition. Indeed, beyond physical symptoms, many patients struggle with psychological burden, affecting daily activities, work, relationships, and their quality of life. Much of this impact remains invisible. |
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| | You are cordially invited to attend the NEED symposium on the 28th of November 2025. You can either physically attend at the Pacheco Building in Brussels or online. More details will be shared soon. | |
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The NEED team will also be present at the EUPHA conference in Helsinki, Finland, where several members will present the framework and current developments in a NEED workshop, and the Pediatric NEED framework. |
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| | To accelerate the expansion of the NEED database, we are searching public and institutional databases for direct inclusion of unmet health-related needs data in the database. To increase the relevance of the NEED framework to assess unmet health-related needs in paediatric populations, we are adapting the NEED assessment framework to the paediatric population. The team is currently working on the development of economic indicators using Belgian data. A comprehensive ethical analysis is underway to explore the ethical implications of the NEED initiative. Work is progressing on a standardized research protocol to guide future NEED studies as well as on a NEED toolbox, including a standardized research strategy, a generic expert questionnaire and a generic patient questionnaire and interview guide. Both the protocol and the tools will be published are freely accessible for research teams who would like to perform a NEEDs assessment study.
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NEED is financially supported by the Belgian Federal Science Policy (BELSPO) through the INFRA-FED call. |
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