At the request of the Interministerial Conference (IMC) on Public Health, a group of experts issued an advice (NL or FR) at the end of 2025 on the reform of the Belgian hospital landscape.
Based on healthcare provision and accessibility, the experts propose a hospital landscape with clear roles for four types of facilities. Criteria were proposed for each type, based on the number of acute justified beds, the total number of beds, the annual number of births and geographical accessibility.
To support this, KCE has developed an online simulation tool. It maps the current healthcare provision and accessibility of hospitals, and simulates how that landscape would evolve during the transition to the four-type model. In addition to healthcare provision, the accessibility of a site also plays a crucial role, particularly in less densely populated regions. Using realistic traffic data, the tool calculates the average journey time by car for people travelling to a Regional General Hospital.
The simulation tool can help to objectively test a range of scenarios, such as mergers, the repurposing of hospital sites, the relocation or closure of certain healthcare services (e.g. emergency services or maternity), etc. By regularly updating the tool, KCE aims to ensure that, even independently of its advice, it continues to provide ongoing support to policymakers and the hospital sector in making decisions on reforms.
