During the 2023 European Pain Federation EFIC Congress, Frédéric Destrebecq, Executive Director of the European Brain Council, will deliver a keynote for the session titled “VoT Chronic Pain – Health Gains and Socio-Economic Impacts of Interdisciplinary Multimodal Chronic Pain Management”.

The session will discuss more value-based and patient-centred care, outline the best practice healthcare intervention, and promote optimised healthcare interventions.

This will be the occasion to highlight the work done by the EBC-led Value of Treatment (VoT) project. EBC conceptualised in 2015 the Value of Treatment research framework with a first VOT study to address current unmet needs in healthcare and the increasing all-age burden of brain disorders – both neurological and mental alike. Direct healthcare and non-medical costs of brain disorders are high, making up for 60% of the total costs (40% attributable to lost productivity) – which EBC estimated at 800 bln€/year in Europe (Gustavsson et al. in the European Neuropsychopharmacology, 2011). All types of costs increase with the severity and the chronification of the disease. Budgetary restrictions across the EU are threatening the sustainability of the European social welfare model as a whole and make it even more important to achieve cost-effectiveness in the use of resources in health systems and its deliverables. In particular, challenges are multiple because of the medical, social and economic impacts of chronic disabling conditions. Together these emphasise the need for an ambitious patient-empowering research policy and an integrated, multidisciplinary approach to brain disorders.