Activities of the Network

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 1200 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, e.g. Acute Stroke, Normal Delivery, Total Hip Arthroplasty, Total Knee Arthroplast, strategic management, care pathway document audit tool, etc. There are also clinical peer review groups on rehabilitation pathways, pathways for the dying patient, geriatric pathways.

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)


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).