What competencies are needed by operational managers in managing care pathways?

This study was conducted to prioritize the competencies for the operational manager regarding the management of care pathways. In the Schouten & Nelissen Competence Model (SNCM), the operational manager works according to the management style ‘task-centred leader/producer’. A measurement instrument was developed to conduct a Delphi study. The competencies on which complete consensus has been reached were presented to a focus group in the second phase of the study. The Delphi was carried out with five experts in three rounds. Complete consensus on 30 competencies was reached. The focus group consisted of three participants and produced 10 core competencies. These belong to the level of operational management and the management style ‘task-centred leader/producer’ in the SNCM. The number of experts in both the Delphi study and focus group was limited, which may have influenced the outcome. There is hardly any literature on competencies operational managers' need for managing care pathways. This study has produced 10 competencies that the operational manager needs for coordinating care pathways. These core competencies can be used to specify or complete the competence profile of operational managers working with care pathways.

Critical pathways, also known as critical paths, clinical pathways, or care paths, are management plans that display goals for patients and provide the sequence and timing of actions necessary to achieve these goals with optimal efficiency.1 As competition in the healthcare industry has increased, managers have embraced critical pathways as a method to reduce variation in care, decrease resource utilization, and potentially improve healthcare quality. Cardiovascular medicine in particular is an area in which critical pathways have been embraced. This is due in part to the high volume and high cost associated with cardiovascular diseases and procedures. In addition, the relatively mature guideline process has also contributed to the growth in use of critical pathways in cardiology. Although anchored in clinical guidelines, the critical pathway is a distinct tool that details processes of care and highlights inefficiencies regardless of whether there is evidence to warrant changes in those processes. Clinical guidelines, on the other hand, are consensus statements that are systematically developed to assist practitioners in making patient management decisions related to specific clinical circumstances.2 Although clinical guidelines can and should be used in pathway development, the majority of processes included in a pathway have not been rigorously tested and are generally not addressed in guidelines. Another term that should also be distinguished from critical pathways is clinical protocols. Protocols are treatment recommendations that are often based on guidelines. Like the critical pathway, the goal of the clinical protocol may be to decrease treatment variation. However, protocols are most often focused on guideline compliance rather than the identification of rate-limiting steps in the patient care process. In further contrast to critical pathways, protocols may or may not include a continuous monitoring and data-evaluation component. Critical pathway techniques were first developed for use in industry as a tool to …

Introduction Care Pathway Management intends to enhance the quality of care by restructuring care services. As recipients of care, patients have relevant experiential knowledge on the provision of care, but they are rarely involved in Care Pathway Management due to various barriers. This study aims to acquire insights into how patients can be meaningfully involved in Care Pathway Management. Methods A case study was conducted to assess the implementation of patient involvement in the co-creation of the care pathways of Soft Tissue Sarcoma and Gastrointestinal Stromal Tumour at Erasmus MC Cancer Institute (the Netherlands), using the Interactive Learning and Action methodology. Within the pathways, seven patients and eight health professionals were involved. To overcome expected and encountered barriers to involving patients, reflection was stimulated on the care pathways and the development process. Qualitative data were collected via interviews, participatory observations and informal conversations. For analysis, a patient involvement evaluation framework and criteria for knowledge co-creation were used. Results Patients indicated specific improvements for current pathways regarding communication, the assistance of a nurse and integrated care. However, the co-creation process encountered several barriers, including limited opportunities to overcome patients’ knowledge gap on medical care services, limited time and uncertainties about responsibilities. Moreover, participatory reflection to enhance the co-creation process was constrained by power imbalances between patients and health professionals and health professionals’ restricted perceptions of their role. Discussion To enhance the meaningful involvement of patients in Care Pathway Management, constraints in joint reflection on the co-creation process must be overcome.

Fast track cardiac surgery pathways: early extubation, process of care, and cost containment.

Clinical care pathway strenghens interprofessional collaboration and quality of health service: a literature review

How has the impact of ‘care pathway technologies’ on service integration in stroke care been measured and what is the strength of the evidence to support their effectiveness in this respect?

Implications for practice There is some evidence that ICPs may support certain elements of service integration in the context of stroke care. This seems to be as a result of their ability to support the timely implementation of clinical interventions and the mobilisation of resources around the patient without incurring additional increases in length of stay. ICPs appear to be most successful in improving service coordination in the acute stroke context where patient care trajectories are predictable. Their value in the context of rehabilitation settings in which recovery pathways are more variable is less clear. There is some evidence that ICPs may be effective in bringing about behavioural changes in contexts where deficiencies in service provision have been identified. Their value in contexts where inter-professional working is well established is less clear. While earlier before and after studies show a reduction in length of stay in ICP-managed care, this may reflect wider healthcare trends, and the failure of later studies to demonstrate further reductions suggests that there may be limits as to how far this can continue to be reduced. There is some evidence to suggest that ICPs bring about improvements in documentation, but we do not know how far documented practice reflects actual practice. It is unclear how ICPs have their effects and the relative importance of the process of development and the artefact in use. (ABSTRACT TRUNCATED)

An increased need for efficiency and effectiveness in today’s healthcare system urges professionals to improve the organization of care. Care pathways are an important tool to achieve this. The overall aim of this study was to analyze if care pathways lead to better organization of care processes. For this, the Care Process Self-Evaluation tool (CPSET) was used to evaluate how healthcare professionals perceive the organization of care processes. Based on information from 2692 health care professionals gathered between November 2007 and October 2011 we audited 261 care processes in 108 organizations. Multilevel analysis was used to compare care processes without and with care pathways and analyze if care pathways led to better organization of care processes. A significant difference between care processes with and without care pathways was found. A care pathway in use led to significant better scores on the overall CPSET scale (p<0.001) and its subscales, “coordination of care” (p<0.001) and “follow-up of care” (p<0.001). Physicians had the highest score on the overall CPSET scale and the five subscales. Care processes organized by care pathways had a 2.6 times higher probability that the care process was well-organized. In around 75% of the cases a care pathway led to better organized care processes. Care processes supported by care pathways were better organized, but not all care pathways were well-organized. Managers can use care pathways to make healthcare professionals more aware of their role in the organization of the care process.

Care of stroke patients varies significantly between hospitals.1,2 Implementation of a stroke care pathway may be a method of promoting organized and efficient patient care that is based on the best-available evidence and clinical guidelines. This, in turn, could reduce variations in stroke care. A care pathway can be defined as a plan of care that is developed and used by a multidisciplinary team, and is applicable to more than 1 aspect of care. It can be a printed document or an electronic program, and it usually forms all or part of the patient’s case record. Care pathways are often used in conjunction with other tools such as case management, and they are intended to assist healthcare professionals in clinical decision-making.3,4 Care pathways are also known by other names such as clinical pathway, critical pathway, critical path method, care paths, and CareMaps. Despite the popularity of care pathways, the evidence to support their use is weak. This systematic review aims to assess the effects of care pathways, as compared with standard medical care, among patients admitted to hospital with acute stroke.5 We searched the Cochrane Stroke Group Specialized Trials Register (last searched in May 2001), the Cochrane …

Care pathways ? the future's bright

Clinical pathways are used worldwide to (re)organize care processes. They are used by multidisciplinary teams in their search towards excellence. The goal of this study is (1) to assess differences in the perception of health professionals in their evaluation of care processes; (2) to assess whether care processes supported by clinical pathways perform better than those not supported by clinical pathways; and (3) to assess the sensitivity and specificity of clinical pathways in predicting well-organized care processes. A cross-sectional, multi-centre study was performed comprising 309 healthcare workers, 103 care processes and 49 hospitals. The Care Process Self Evaluation Tool (CPSET) was used to score care processes according to their organization. Processes were also scored according to the level of pathway implementation. (1) Significant differences between healthcare professionals were found on two of five CPSET subscales. No significant differences were found among the overall CPSET scores. (2) Care processes supported by pathways had the highest CPSET scores. Nonetheless, continuous follow-up is necessary. (3) Clinical pathways have significant impact on the coordination of care (odds ratio: 8.92), follow-up (odds ratio: 6.65) and overall CPSET score (odds ratio: 4.26). Clinical pathways have a positive impact on the organization of care processes. Not all pathways have high CPSET scores, and care processes without pathways can also be well organized. Continuous evaluation is essential. This is the first study to analyse how healthcare teams perceive the organization of care processes with respect to clinical pathways. Our findings are important for other quality improvement methods.

PurposeThe importance of managerial competencies in monitoring and improving the performance of organisational leaders and managers is well accepted. Different processes have been used to identify and develop competency frameworks or models for healthcare managers around the world to meet different contextual needs. The purpose of the paper is to introduce a validated process in management competency identification and development applied in Australia – a process leading to a management competency framework with associated behavioural items that can be used to measure core management competencies of health service managers.Design/methodology/approachThe management competency framework development study incorporated both qualitative and quantitative methods, implemented in four stages, including job description analysis, focus group discussions and online surveys.FindingsThe study confirmed that the four-stage process could identify management competencies and the framework developed is considered reliable and valid for developing a management competency assessment tool that can measure management competence amongst managers in health organisations. In addition, supervisors of health service managers could use the framework to distinguish perceived superior and average performers among managers in health organisations.Practical implicationsDeveloping the core competencies of health service managers is important for management performance improvement and talent management. The six core management competencies identified can be used to guide the design professional development activities for health service managers.Originality/valueThe validated management competency identification and development process can be applied in other countries and different industrial contexts to identify core management competency requirements.

ObjectiveCompetent managers are vital to the productivity and service quality of healthcare organizations and the sustainability of the healthcare system. To improve their management competence, understanding of management competency requirements is important. The purpose of this study was to synthesize the evidence related to the leadership and management competencies in healthcare organizations through the best-fit method.MethodsA systematic review of literature published between 2000 and 2020 was performed to identify studies focusing on confirming and/or identifying the competency requirements of hospital managers. The best-fit framework synthesis method was used to map the identified competencies and associated behavioral items against the validated management competency assessment program (MCAP) management competency framework.ResultsTwelve studies were identified for inclusion in the review. The mapping of the identified competencies and behavioral items generated a competency model for hospital managers that can apply for different healthcare context. The new competency model includes the following seven core leadership and management competencies: evidence-informed decision-making, operations, administration and resource management, knowledge of healthcare environment and the organization, interpersonal, communication qualities and relationship management, leading people and organisation, enabling and managing change, and professionalism.ConclusionThis review and the mapping of the competencies identified in previous studies against the validated MCAP framework has resulted in the recommendation for an extended leadership and management competency framework for health service managers. It provides guidance for the formulation of training and development directions for the health service management workforce in a different healthcare context.

Competency-Based Management is a management model based on competence with main objective to find out and ensure what are competence and behavior needed for excellent performance in the job so as to help an organization or individual to understand how to enhance their work performance. In this article, scores for five different management competencies are summarized from the questionnaire survey, and Data Envelopment Analysis is done respectively on basic information and five management competence scores, so as to understand each self-assessed management competence performance from 128 persons under interview. Then in this article, the technical efficiency values of five management competencies are used for partial grey relational analysis so as to acquire the entire performance of five management competencies and to perform ranking, and it is hoped that person under interview with good and bad entire performance in management competence can be distinguished. Finally in this article, the scores of five management competencies are used as independent variable, and the entire performance of management competence after ranking is used as dependent variable to set up respectively assessment models for three management competencies, namely, Genetic Programming, Bayes’ Method and Logistic Regression Analysis. From the analysis result, it can be seen that the top three rankings in entire performance are respectively number 56, number 34 and number 19 of the person under interview; and the last three rankings are respectively number 79, number 45 and number 124 of person under interview; among three management competence performance assessment models, Genetic Programming model has the best classification assessment model.

How has the impact of 'care pathway technologies' on service integration in stroke care been measured and what is the strength of the evidence to support their effectiveness in this respect?