Value Based Healthcare

A much-discussed topic within healthcare is the American concept of Value Based Healthcare (VBHC) or improving patient outcomes without increasing costs. By measuring the value and outcome of certain care pathways, costs of unproven or unnecessary treatments can be saved. This model can be applied to healthcare in a variety of ways. However, a solid digital infrastructure is essential for the successful application of VBHC. How can digital collaboration contribute to VBHC and achieve better quality and sustainable care for all involved in the care pathway?

Current challenges

Although more and more VBHC projects are being initiated, many organizations continue to struggle to successfully apply VBHC. A recent study, in which healthcare professionals were interviewed, concludes that the way healthcare is currently organized does not provide a good basis for applying VBHC and creating value for the patient. In addition to the regulatory and funding barriers, multidisciplinary collaboration is often insufficiently standardized and structured, making it difficult to apply VBHC across the care pathway. Furthermore, because patients have to deal with different healthcare providers and organizations in their care process, there is often a lack of overview of the care being delivered. It is essential for VBHC that healthcare organizations can monitor the outcomes and quality of care together and make joint decisions.

VHBC and digital collaboration within oncology diagnostics (MDO)

Oncology care is a forerunner in the field of VBHC in the Netherlands. The complex diagnostics in cancer patients require that cases are increasingly discussed at a regional and sometimes national level. Involving patients in the multidisciplinary collaboration from diagnosis and treatment to aftercare is essential in this respect. The UMC Utrecht has started an initiative to optimize regional oncology diagnostics. By means of a regional tumor board for the multidisciplinary consultation (MDO), the hospital wants to discuss cases and share knowledge with other healthcare providers in the region. Each year, more than 6,000 patients are discussed in one of the regional MDOs. These cases are usually discussed by a team of care providers from different hospitals. This way, choices can be better substantiated and the difference in the quality of care in the region can be minimized. To make decisions about a patient’s future in an efficient and quality-oriented manner, all healthcare organizations must be able to access, share and present the same data at the same time. That is why sharing patient information between healthcare organizations in an automated and secure manner remains a key challenge for the application of VBHC.

Online MDO platform

The innovative platform ‘Vitaly’ developed by Parsek Group solves this problem, says Gilbert Bod, IT manager at UMC Utrecht. This remote platform is hosted by a private cloud infrastructure and managed services. The platform streamlines the collaborative decision-making process and optimizes data exchange between different hospital EPDs. “In the Netherlands, we have found very few software applications which could support our complex Tumor board processes and which could connect and integrate with the hospitals’ infrastructures such as XDS and AD.” said Bod. Based on a 1-year observation of virtual regional MDO collaboration, it could be concluded that the solution offers many benefits. For example, the decision time decreased as the number of patients who had to be rescheduled due to incomplete or insufficient documentation was reduced. As a result, the 1-week treatment delay decreased by 60%. Furthermore, this model has shown a significant growth in MDO capacity, the number of patients that can be discussed in one MDO has increased by 30%.

In addition, Vitaly provides support in reducing the administrative burden for all MDO participants. According to Mickado Codrington, medical secretary at UMC Utrecht, Vitaly helps to reduce the workload and makes the exchange of information faster and more accurate. By supporting efficient collaboration in this way and sharing the preparation of documents digitally with all MDO participants, errors can be avoided, and less paper is exchanged. This results in 64% less preparation time per case. By shaping the entire collaboration online, Vitaly contributes to improving patient outcomes and realizing sustainable care for healthcare organizations and their employees

Are you curious about what Parsek’s Vitaly platform can do for your organization or would you like to receive more information? Please contact MedScaler at innovators@medscaler.com or 085 1300 820.

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