Montse Moharra, OIGS AQuAS
The EHMA Annual Conference took place this year in Breda (The Netherlands). The main theme was on Evidence-Based Management which is inspired by the use of evidence in the decision making process of healthcare professionals assuming that the systematic use of the best available evidence in management decision making will improve healthcare provision. This year’s programme included several oral presentations within the Special Interest Group (SIG) session on best practice in management. The aim was to make participants familiar with different problem-solving approaches taken up in different European countries.
The Observatory of Innovation in Healthcare Management in Catalonia presented the three best practices selected from innovative experiences during this SIG session:
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Adequacy of prescription in primary and community healthcare consisting of the planned and standardized withdrawal of chronic medication in elderly and poly-medicated patients;
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The online pre-op which consists of a virtual appointment where the professional anaesthetist gathers information from the patient’s different data sources;
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The Teledermatology practice which starts when the primary healthcare physician photographs a skin condition and schedules a virtual visit with the dermatologist.
The selection of best practices from innovative experiences is based on quality analysis that goes far beyond a mere compilation of experiences. With this process, it is possible to compile practices and to identify the distinguishing features as well as the outcomes of the best experiences carried out in the healthcare system in order to propagate and scale them.
The key drivers to identify the best practices in the Observatory are not only based on the reduction of costs of healthcare but also on the benefits of innovation in terms of improvement access and scalability to other settings. It is worth highlighting that advantages are offered to patients and professionals in terms of greater satisfaction for patients (improvement in quality of life and reduction of risk of side effects) and for professionals (prioritisation of time and optimisation of primary health care resources). However, new challenges for the future were also posted such as the identification of what works and what does not work in different contexts, identification of barriers and drivers for the implementation, sharing problems and acknowledging failures and finding solutions. The uptake of these challenges will be crucial to have a successful adoption and spread of best practices in healthcare management in the future.
Discussion among participants in the SIG session brought the opportunity to share knowledge derived from practical experiences and explore managerial and policy issues.