AViQ and Woonzorgdecreet compliance — 2026 essentials for Belgian care homes

The regulatory landscape governing care homes (MR) and care and nursing homes (MRS) in Belgium has grown denser in recent years. Between the consolidation of Walloon accreditation standards overseen by AViQ, the ongoing evolution of the Flemish Woonzorgdecreet, and the rising weight of GDPR requirements applied to health data, care home directors face a layered set of texts that must be articulated together.

2026 is a pivotal year for three reasons. First, accreditation agency inspections are increasingly structured around measurable quality indicators, with nurse call traceability being one of them. Second, the media and political pressure on resident safety — shaped by several public audit reports — is pushing supervisory bodies to raise their documentary expectations. Third, multi-region groups must deal with two reference frameworks simultaneously: AViQ on the Wallonia-Brussels side, and the Agentschap Zorg en Gezondheid on the Flemish side.

This article offers a pragmatic synthesis aimed at care home directors, care coordinators and IT managers. It is not intended to replace a legal analysis, but to provide an operational reading grid — useful for preparing an inspection, arbitrating a technology investment or aligning several sites on a common foundation.

What the regulations cover on the Wallonia-Brussels side (AViQ)

In the Walloon Region, accreditation and oversight of MR and MRS facilities fall under the Agency for a Quality Life (AViQ), on the basis of the Walloon Code of Social Action and Health and its implementing orders. For the Brussels-Capital Region, powers are shared between Iriscare and CoCoM depending on the facility’s linguistic regime, but the regulatory logic remains very close to the Walloon model.

General framework

Accreditation standards cover architectural aspects (room surface area, sanitary equipment, circulation), staffing standards (ratio of care staff per resident according to Katz dependency level), care quality (life project, care plan, individual resident record) and safety obligations.

On resident safety, the publicly available expectations converge around several requirements:

• a call system allowing the resident to request help from their room, bathroom and relevant common areas;
• an organisation guaranteeing a care response within a reasonable time frame, adapted to the dependency level of beneficiaries;
• documentation of internal procedures (who responds, within what time, how the incident is tracked);
• service continuity, including at night, with clear escalation procedures.

Controls and inspections

AViQ inspections combine on-site visits, documentary analysis and interviews. Inspectors examine in particular:

• written procedures relating to nurse call and rounds;
• incident registers and how they are handled;
• maintenance of critical equipment (including the call system);
• consistency between planned and actual staffing, especially at night.

Inspection findings may result in recommendations, formal action plans, or more binding measures in case of major gaps. The ability to rapidly produce objective data — call history, average response times, incident rates — becomes an asset for demonstrating operational control.

Practical points to watch on nurse call

Without citing specific legal articles to avoid approximations, the practices expected in 2026 essentially concern:

• functional coverage (standard call, presence call, emergency call, and where applicable service call);
• traceability (who called, when, who responded, within what time);
• technical reliability (redundancy, supervision, alerts on failure);
• integration with care practices (handover to teams, potential link with the resident record).

What the Woonzorgdecreet covers on the Flemish side

In the Flemish Region, the framework for MR and MRS facilities (woonzorgcentra) rests on the 2019 Woonzorgdecreet and its implementing orders. The Agentschap Zorg en Gezondheid (within the current organisation, under the Departement Zorg) is the reference authority for accreditation, oversight and recognition of facilities.

General framework

The Woonzorgdecreet promotes a person-centred approach and continuity across life pathways. It covers not only woonzorgcentra but also short-stay centres, day centres, home care services and intermediate forms of housing. This integrated vision means that quality standards — including expectations on safety devices — fit within a logic of continuity between residential, semi-residential and home care.

For woonzorgcentra, the publicly available expectations notably concern:

• the presence of a call system accessible to the resident from their living areas;
• a formalised quality policy with indicator monitoring;
• documented procedures for incident management;
• an organisation enabling an adapted response 24/7.

Differences from AViQ

Substantively, the safety objectives are very close between the two regions: enable the beneficiary to call, guarantee a rapid response, record the event. The differences relate more to:

• vocabulary and administrative terminology;
• oversight procedures (inspection cycles, evaluation grids, reporting portals);
• the quality frameworks mobilised (Flanders has historically relied on approaches such as Woonzorgcentra indicators, with the publication of comparable metrics);
• the pace and format of regulatory updates.

For a multi-region group, the real issue is not so much the substantive gap as the administrative burden linked to double documentation and to aligning internal procedures with two distinct frameworks.

Common ground and points of divergence

The comparative grid below summarises the structuring elements for a care home director or a group quality manager.

In short, the fundamentals overlap: a resident must be able to call, a team must respond within an appropriate time, and the whole must be traceable and auditable. The divergences are mainly procedural and terminological.

GDPR and traceability of nurse calls

GDPR is the great invisible in nurse call tender briefs. It nevertheless applies directly, and the data handled — call triggered by an identified beneficiary, timestamp, care response, and where applicable presence or fall sensors — are considered health data or, at the very least, sensitive personal data because they report on dependency status and care events.

Principles to articulate

Four principles deserve particular attention in the nurse call context:

• Purpose and minimisation. Call data may only be collected and retained for explicit purposes (beneficiary safety, care quality, evidence in case of incident, quality indicators) and must be limited to what is necessary.
• Retention period. To public knowledge, there is no single legal retention period applicable to nurse call logs. Facilities define a proportionate duration, often aligned with the retention periods of the individual resident record or with civil and criminal liability requirements.
• Access. Only carers and authorised profiles, acting within the scope of their duties, may consult individual data. Consultations themselves must be traceable.
• Subprocessing. The nurse call system supplier is a processor within the meaning of GDPR. A data processing agreement (DPA) must frame the relationship, with particular attention to data location and transfers outside the EU.

What this means in concrete terms

For a care home director, this translates into several reflexes:

• require clear documentation from the supplier on server location, ideally in Belgium or at minimum within the European Union;
• ensure call logs are reliably archived, with preserved integrity;
• define a dedicated entry for the nurse call system in the processing register;
• check access management (roles, passwords, traceability of consultations);
• include in the contract a clause on data reversibility at the end of the relationship.

A common grey area: video and sensors

Video extensions, fall sensors, bed-exit detection and night-time movement detection increase the sensitivity of processing. They call for a proportionate impact assessment (DPIA) and clear information to the beneficiary or their representative. Formalising the cost-benefit-risk trade-off in an internal note is advisable; it provides a valuable reference point in case of inspection or review by the Data Protection Authority.

Practical 2026 checklist for a care home director

The ten points below form an operational working base for approaching 2026 with confidence. They do not replace an audit, but they help to quickly identify risk areas.

1. Regulatory mapping. Formalise the list of texts applicable to your facility depending on its region and type of accreditation. Update it at least once a year.
2. Written nurse call procedure. Have an internal procedure describing call types, target response times, escalation rules and the day/night split.
3. Incident register. Keep a structured register of call-related incidents (no response, unusual delay, technical failure) with documented handling.
4. Functional coverage. Check that calls are accessible from rooms, bathrooms and common areas where beneficiaries may be alone.
5. Maintenance and supervision. Ensure you have a clear maintenance contract with availability indicators and an alert process in case of failure.
6. Technical traceability. Your system must log every call with timestamp, care response and duration. Data must be exportable for an inspection.
7. GDPR processing record. Include the nurse call system in your processing register, with purposes, durations, recipients and processors.
8. Data processing agreement. Verify the existence and quality of the DPA signed with the supplier, in particular on data location and reversibility.
9. Team training. Train carers in the correct use of the system, escalation procedures and incident documentation.
10. Quality indicators. Track a few simple indicators (number of calls, median response time, technical incident rate) to steer over time.

Two more strategic points deserve adding to this checklist for multi-site groups:

11. Common multi-region baseline. Define a baseline of procedures compatible with both AViQ and Woonzorgdecreet expectations, to limit the administrative burden.
12. Technology roadmap. Position your investment decisions (replacement, extension, integration) on a three-to-five-year horizon, in line with the accreditation cycle.

How Healthcall aligns with these requirements

Healthcall is a nurse call system published by Groovit SRL, a company based in Frasnes-lez-Anvaing, operational since 2017 and now deployed in around twenty Belgian care homes (approximately 21 facilities from 30 to 150 beds, or close to 1,250 resident beneficiaries). Without moving into a commercial pitch, three elements deserve mention in light of the requirements discussed in this article:

• Native GDPR and hosting. The architecture is designed from the outset for health data processing, with triple-copy database replication and hosting in Belgium.
• Open architecture. The product integrates with existing ecosystems, which makes it easier to align with internal procedures and resident record systems already in place.
• Product cadence. Four updates per year make it possible to regularly integrate regulatory developments and field feedback, without operational disruption.

Over time, only one client has left the platform in eight years, which reflects a durable alignment with client facility expectations.

Going further

To go deeper into the topics addressed in this article, several complementary resources are available on the Healthcall site:

• the pillar guide Nurse call solutions, for a functional and technical overview;
• the dossier Regulation and compliance, which brings together all the articles in the series;
• the Guide to nurse call technologies, useful for arbitrating between wired, radio and IP;
• the Compliance FAQ, which answers the most frequent questions from care home directors.

Let’s discuss your 2026 compliance

If you wish to concretely assess the alignment of your nurse call system with AViQ, Woonzorgdecreet and GDPR requirements, we offer a no-commitment conversation with a member of the Healthcall team. Request a demo.