May 5, 2021
May 5, 2021
Value Based Healthcare
A much-discussed topic within healthcare is the original American concept of Value-Based Healthcare (VBHC) or improving patient outcomes without increasing costs. By measuring the “value” and outcomes of certain care pathways, costs of unproven or unnecessary treatments can be saved. This model can be applied in various ways in healthcare. A solid digital infrastructure is essential for the successful application of VBHC. How can digital collaboration contribute to Value Based Healthcare and thus realise better quality and sustainable care for all parties involved in the care process?
Current challenges
Although more and more VBHC projects are initiated, it remains difficult for many organisations to successfully apply VBHC. A recent study, in which healthcare professionals were interviewed, concludes that the way healthcare is currently organised does not offer a good basis for applying VBHC and creating value for the patient. In addition to the many regulatory and financing obstacles, multidisciplinary cooperation is often insufficiently standardised and structured, making it difficult to apply VBHC throughout the chain. Because patients have to deal with different care providers and organisations in their care process, there is often a lack of a clear overview. It is essential for VBHC that care institutions can monitor the outcomes, quality of care and make joint decisions.
VHBC and digital cooperation in oncological diagnostics (MDO)
Oncological care is a forerunner in the field of VBHC in the Netherlands. The complex diagnostics in cancer patients requires that cases are increasingly discussed on a regional and sometimes national level. Involving patients in multidisciplinary cooperation from diagnosis and treatment to aftercare is essential. UMC Utrecht has started an initiative to optimise regional oncology diagnostics. By means of a regional tumor board (multidisciplinary consultation / Multidisciplinar Overleg – MDO), the hospital discusses cases and shares knowledge with other care providers in the region. Every year, more than 6.000 patients are discussed in one of the regional MDOs. These cases are usually discussed by a team of care providers from different hospitals. In this way, optimal treatment choices can be better substantiated and differences in the quality of care in the region can be minimised. However, to decide about a patient’s future care in an efficient and quality-oriented manner, all healthcare organisations must have access to the same data at the same time and be able to share and present it. The automated and secure exchange of patient information between healthcare organisations still remains an important challenge for the adoption of modern VBHC models.
Online MDO platform
Parsek innovative platform Vitaly solves this problem, says Gilbert Bod, IT manager at UMC Utrecht. This external platform hosted on private cloud infrastructure and managed services streamlines the process of multidisciplinary consultation and optimizes the data exchange between the different hospital EHRs. “We have only seen a few software solutions that support these complex tumour board processes and that we could integrate with hospital infrastructures such as XDS (Cross-Enterprise Document Sharing) and AD (Active Directory),” says Bod. After a one-year observation of the virtual regional MDO collaboration, it could be concluded that the solution offered many advantages. For example, decision time was reduced as the number of patients who had to be rescheduled due to incomplete or insufficient documentation was reduced. Postponing of treatment by one week, therefore, decreased by 60%. This model has shown a significant increase in MDO capacity as the number of patients that can be treated in one MDO has increased by 30%.
In addition, Vitaly also helps to reduce the administrative burden for all MDO participants. According to Mickado Codrington, a medical secretary at UMC Utrecht, Vitaly helps to reduce the workload and makes the exchange of information faster and more accurate. By efficiently supporting collaboration and digitally sharing the documentation with all MDO participants, errors can be avoided and less paper is exchanged. This results in 64% less preparation time per case. By shaping the entire collaboration online, Vitaly contributes to improved patient outcomes and sustainable care for care institutions and their staff.
On the 11th of May at 15:00 – 15:45, MedScaler, in cooperation with HealthValley and Parsek, will host a webinar on this topic. Several experts from UMC Utrecht, Kalcio Healthcare and Open Line will share their experience about Value Based Healthcare and digital collaboration within oncological diagnostics.
Would you like to be present? Register now via: https://www.healthvalley.nl/events/value-based-healthcare-en-digitale-samenwerking
Want to know more about Vitaly MDO solution from the article? Check our reference case: https://parsek.com/references/umc-utrecht-regional-virtual-tumor-board.