HealthNetControl - Process-based Controlling in Healthcare Networks

Abstract

In Germany Integrated Care Scenarios that aim to enhance quality and reduce costs of patient care by improving cooperation between healthcare suppliers become more and more important. To realize the potentials of integrated care professional controlling systems are needed that provide contemporary transparency on network processes and enable the network management to take appropriate actions.

The research project aims to identify, design and analyze electronic services that facilitate controlling processes in ambulant healthcare networks.

Project Description

Motivation and Objectives

The healthcare industry is one of the most important economic sectors in Germany causing annual expenses of about 230 billion euros (over 10 percent of the gross domestic product of Germany) and employing more than 4.2 million people. The German healthcare system is facing massive challenges due to the demographic and economic development as well as the increasing costs for medical innovation. Furthermore the quality is judged to be not better than mediocre. To improve patient satisfaction and to reduce costs of treatment processes by enhancing the cooperation between the healthcare providers a lot of different healthcare networks have been founded. An empirical study on healthcare networks in the ambulant sector reveals that there are still a lot of challenges to cope with:

• Only 17 % have a structured system of indicators that can be used to control the network processes.
• Only one of eleven networks is able to automatically retrieve relevant and structured data for network controlling at regular intervals.
• 75 % do not use performance-based payment. Only 6 % of the networks impose sanctions on networks actors who fail to reach defined targets.

 Research Tasks 

• Analysis of controlling processes in healthcare networks: Actions, tasks and interfaces to the network processes are surveyed and analyzed. The demand for information systems and gaps in the actual support are identified.
• Identification and analysis of network strategies, objectives, performance indicators and data sources: In cooperation with project partners network strategies, objectives and relevant performance indicators are identified. Potential data sources (e.g. electronic patient record) are identified and analyzed in practical projects.  
• Analysis, design and development of appropriate reporting systems: To analyse and assess the network performance and the underlying network processes and structures, relevant facts are identified and processed. Adequate reports, interactive reporting and simulation systems are provided in the healthcare performance Cockpit (HPC).  
• Design and development of decision support systems: Electronic services are designed that assess and propose potential actions to realize identified performance gaps. E.g. electronic services are designed and prototypically implemented that generate proposals that aim to adjust the configuration of incentive systems in order to improve effectiveness and efficiency.

Related Work

The project is located at the Competence Center "E-Health Networking".

Project Team

• Project Management: Dipl.-Wirtsch.Inf. Jörg Purucker
• Project Team: Students

Related Student Reports (excerpt)