Key features of Clinical Immunology are:

• Top clinical care: of all care provided 80 percent categorized as top clinical care, meaning complex care that can only be given in an academic setting.
• Innovation: an important development in the past decade has been the rise of biologicals as an often very good but expensive treatment for rare immunological diseases for which those medications are not registered/approved. Our section initiates and participates in clinical trials to prove efficacy of treatment in those so-called orphan diseases and also participates in the debate and negotiations between patients and insurers and so on.
• Collaborations: collaborating with other specialists and departments and even other hospitals and patient organizations has high priority. A good example is the ‘Immune deficiency center for patients with recurrent infections’, which is an alliance between the departments of medical immunology, clinical immunology and pediatrics (Sophia Childrens Hospital). On April 8th 2010 this alliance was presented as the first “immune deficiency center” in The Netherlands. The center is closely involved in the “International Patient Organisation for Primary Immunodeficiencies” (IPOPI) and has an advisory role since 2014. In 2012 collaboration with the pulmonary department lead to the opening of a “center for sarcoidosis”, focusing on research and patient care. There is also an alliance between clinical immunology of EMC, the Rotterdam Eye Hospital and Sint Franciscus Gasthuis Rotterdam.
• Data and biobanking: collecting patient data per disease entity for future research and monitoring of good patient care/ treatment efficacy in data- and biobanks.