Activities of the Network

The Network has three main activities.

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:
- ½ day course for multidisciplinary teams working on pathways (4x/year)
- evening course for medical doctors and management teams (2x/year)
- 2 day course for all healthcare workers interested in the concept and methodology of pathways (2x/years)
- 3 day courses for pathway coordinators and pathway facilitators (1x/year)
- 10 day courses for pathway facilitators (1x/year)
- in house training (on demand)

A second activity is to support multidisciplinary teamwork, in-hospital projects on pathways and multi-centre research projects & benchmarking. Within the Network, more than 350 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 (23 hospitals), Total Hip Arthroplasty (17 hospitals), Total Knee Arthroplasty (14 hospitals)). These task forces define indicators based on the Leuven Clinical Pathway Compass (see Vanhaecht et.al., 2003). The Leuven Clinical Pathway Compass is a framework with 5 domains of measures: Clinical Measures, Financial Measures, Team Measures, Process Measures and Service - MeasuresBenchmark reports on the defined outcomes are produced and distributed
- Clinical peer review groups on rehabilitation pathways, pathways for the dying patient, geriatric pathways
- Task force on ICT
- Task force on measurement (instrument development (validity, reliability), data collection manual, benchmarking): patient satisfaction, team effectiveness
- Task force on finance and cost accounting
- Task force on strategic management (with CEO’s of the organisations)

A third activity of the Network is research and international collaboration. Within the Network, several PhD projects are running:
- Development and validation of an Audit Tool for Clinical Pathways,
- Developing Cost Accounting methodology for clinical pathways,
- Capacity management for clinical pathways
- Pathways and Information Technology.

Several research projects have started:
- Link between Clinical pathways and DRG,
- How to incorporate EBM in Clinical pathways
- Clinical pathways and multi-disciplinary teamwork (Relational coordination)

The Belgian Dutch Clinical Pathway Network is involved in international collaborations. The Network management is involved in the Integrated Care Pathway Conference (London) and is co-manager of the Smartgroup on Clinical Pathways (http://www.smartgroups.com/groups/clinicalpathways). The Network management is highly involved in the introduction of the European Pathway Association (www.E-P-A.org).