History and Management of the Network
In 1997 the Centre for Health Services and Nursing Research, School of Public Health, Catholic University Leuven, ran the pilot studies on clinical pathways in Belgium. In March 2000 the Belgian Dutch Clinical Pathway (BDCPW) Network (www.nkp.be) was launched with 8 acute hospital trusts.
The main purpose was to support Belgian and Dutch hospitals to develop, implement and evaluate clinical pathways in their own organizations. Since 2003 a joint venture with the Dutch Institute for Healthcare Improvement (CBO) and the Unversité Catholique de Louvain (UCL) (French speaking university in Belgium) has been established. The Network is led by a multidisciplinary team under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Walter Sermeus. The team incorporates competencies in patient care management, change management, cost-accounting, operations research, evidence based medicine and ICT.
By September 2005, 82 organisations are member (including acute hospital trusts, rehabilitation centres and home care organisations). Memberschip to the Belgian-Dutch Clinical Pathway Network is only eligible as organisation. The CEO of the member organisation signs a 3-year contract with Leuven University, UCL or CBO. Every member organisation pays an annual fee of €5000.
The Network has three main activities.
1) The first activity is to provide education on clinical pathways and related concepts as patient safety, quality control, multidisciplinary teamwork, operations management and EBM. Different education modules are organised on the concept and methodology of pathways and care management (from ½ day to 10 day course).
2) A second activity is to support multidisciplinary teamwork, in-hospital projects on pathways and multi-centre research projects & benchmarking. Within the Network, more than 400 pathways are under development or have been implemented. The Network members have access to a password protected website with all details on all projects.
On specific topics, task forces have been developed: 4 clinical task forces (Acute Stroke (10 hospitals), Normal Delivery (32 hospitals), Total Hip Arthroplasty (24 hospitals), Total Knee Arthroplasty (20 hospitals)). Anonymous benchmark reports on outcomes are produced and distributed.Clinical peer review groups on rehabilitation pathways, pathways for the dying patient, geriatric pathways.
Task force on ICT and e-pathways.
Task force on measurement (instrument development (validity, reliability), data collection manual, benchmarking): patient satisfaction, team effectiveness
Task force on strategic management (with CEO’s of the organizations)
3) A third activity of the Network is research and international collaboration (partner European Pathway Association). Within the Network, several research projects are running:
- Study on the determinants of pathways and impact on clinical outcome and length of stay (PhD, faculty of medicine)
- Algorithms for Capacity management for clinical pathways (2 PhD’s, faculty of applied economics)
- Study Designs for Clinical Pathway Evaluation (PhD, faculty of medicine, joint project with University Piedmont, Italy)
- Clinical Pathways and patient logistics (PhD, faculty of medicine, joint project with University Rotterdam, The Netherlands)
- Pathways and Information Technology (funded project)
- Link between Clinical pathways and DRG’s (funded project)
- How to incorporate EBM in Clinical pathways (funded project)
- Clinical pathways and multi-disciplinary teamwork (project, MSc dissertation)- Clinical Pathways and patient satisfaction (project, MSc dissertation)
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