health system – AQuAS Blog

How to foster an integrated health and social care centred on the individual in a local environment

14 Mar

SUSTAIN is a Horizon2020 European Project related to integrated care for older people that live at home with complex health and social needs. Thirteen initiatives from seven European projects participate in it.

It is a project whose aim is to improve a range of things including the care centred on the individual, the coordination of teams of professionals, the preventive nature of care, safety and efficiency.

In Catalonia, two initiatives (Social and Health Integration of Sabadell Nord and the Programme for complex chronic and advanced patients and the geriatric population of Osona) have participated in the design and development of projects for improvement which have been assessed by AQuAS (you can read the report and article here).

On 23^rd January, 2019, professionals involved in the groups that are the driving force of the two local initiatives (Sabadell and Osona) of integrated health and social care – family doctors, workers and social workers, nurses, geriatric and management personnel- met at AQuAS in their first joint meeting.

(SUSTAIN team Sabadell, Osona and AQuAS in Barcelona

The professionals were able to share thoughts on one question: What remains of the SUSTAIN project in the territory?

This was the starting point to identify specific actions that can make the projects sustainable and to also comment on aspects for improvement beyond the projects.

The aim was to identify opportunities within reach of the local initiatives themselves that could serve to generate a more favourable environment for integrated health and social care centred on the individual, both preventive and reactive in nature.

From the brainstorming that was done, a multitude of local actions can be derived with which to drive integrated health and social care centred on the individual. Let’s look at it in detail:

Prioritise at a population level Delimiting a population group for which it is deemed most important to apply the new PIAI method (Individualised Plan for Integrated Care), so that efforts can be concentrated on this group until the context allows for scaling up to the entire population of 65 and older. One possibility would be the older people who live at home with complex health and social needs who at present receive home-based healthcare, or for those cases known by primary healthcare but are not beneficiaries of home-based social care. This would be done in order to eliminate the barrier limiting access to social services or because there is a lack of awareness of these social service
Provide continuity in coordination between sectors, while taking into consideration the suitability of the new PIAI method for each individual case Continuing with periodic meetings of the team of professionals in charge of the multidimensional assessment of needs so as to plan an individualised and integrated health and social care (at least of the triad of primary care, family medicine-nursing-social work). These meetings, held on a monthly basis, would enable the teams to consider who, among those users visited recently (in primary care centres, at home, at local social services, at intermediary care in the case of Osona), would particularly benefit from the integrated and participative approach of SUSTAIN, with the possible introduction of changes or objectives to improve their care and their quality of life.
Inviting professionals that have not participated in SUSTAIN to use the new PIAI method, giving these professionals the necessary tools (time, training) so they can familiarise themselves with the approach of integrated health and social care centred on the individual. With this in mind, there is talk of the importance of “maintaining the spirit of SUSTAIN” and in gradually getting the most reluctant professionals more involved in introducing changes to their way of working.
Carrying out an analysis of the different capacities and responsibilities of each professional in primary care teams (family medicine-nursing-social work-social health work), and sharing out roles and responsibilities ad hoc, which can enhance the skills of each individual. This could mean that professionals who officially occupy the same position (for example, family medicine) would become specialised in one or another type of care (emergency, development of the PIAI, specific pathologies), and it would mean accepting that not all professionals with the same position need do the same: “one-size-only professionals are not needed”.
Enhancing the figure of the spokesperson in a healthcare team, both when dealing with a user as well as an internal coordinator of a team, emphasising that the user has a team with professionals that interact with each other in order to provide solutions to their different needs as quickly as possible. The emphasis is on the opportunity that workers and social workers have in acting as liaison officers between primary care, local social services and community resources while at the same time coordinating actions which are contained in the PIAI.
Analysing how the figure of the social and health worker can best fit in In the case of Sabadell, this figure has only been incorporated very recently. An analysis will need to be carried out with the entire group of professionals that intervene in care but especially with the social workers (under contract with local social services, socio-health workers or social workers specialised in intermediary care). This will be done in order to understand their capacities and perspectives of what function each professional should have bearing in mind their particularities and the specific environments in which they work (for example, specific tools and procedures they can apply, what information systems they have at their disposal or what other professionals they are in direct contact with).
Set up safe and respectful local systems with the LOPD (Spanish personal data protection law) in order to exchange the minimal information necessary to carry out a joint multidimensional assessment and to share the PAIAs among the most important professionals in each case. The example of Integrated System of Health in Osona (SISO) is mentioned, which enables primary care professionals to see which users are admitted in the hospital centres that make up the system, or the mechanism foreseen by the County Council of Osona to enable social health workers employed in health centres to consult the degree of dependency of a user.

We end this post by commenting that this week we participated in the final conference of the project in Brussels.

Representatives of the Osona SUSTAIN team, Sabadell and AQuAS in Brussels

Post written by Jillian Reynolds, Lina Masana, Nuri Cayuelas and Mireia Espallargues.

Specialised health training and indicators to measure the quality of teaching

7 Jun

To work as a specialist in the health system -in any speciality in medicine, pharmacy, psychology, nursing or other- not only do you need to have a university degree but also the corresponding specialist qualification. To get it you need to pass the selective test traditionally known as the MIR in Spain (national specialisation examination) for specialist doctors, PIR for psychologists, FIR for hospital pharmacists, to give some examples and which has been done annually for more than 30 years. The training of specialists in the Health System is done in public and private health centres and teaching venues, previously accredited, to which professionals have access once they have passed the selection process, in rigorous order of registration.

The allocation of chosen places for this year recently finalised and the residents took up their places at the end of May. The specialist health press has made use of all kinds of headlines, commenting on the results of autonomous communities, the most sought after specialties by residents or the best positioned centres. Nevertheless, not all the comments that have been published, sometimes too hastily, contain an accurate and rigorous analysis. The ability of centres to attract teaching staff in Catalonia has not regressed nor changed much in recent years; the hospitals and teaching centres most sought after in Family and Community Care by new residents are still the same at a state level.

Why is it important to be an attractive teaching centre for residents? Obviously, because all centres aspire to have the students with the best marks, not only for the prestige that this has or for the base of knowledge they have shown to have, but also because of the possibility of retaining them and contracting them at the end of their residency. The lower the mark in the MIR, the greater the chances are of abandoning a speciality and in practice a significant number of foreign residents are seen as having greater difficulties for future employment.

To promote the intrinsic and perceived quality in specialised training given to residents, the Department of Health of the Generalitat de Catalunya has implemented a Management Plan of Teaching Quality and within this, a set of structural, procedural and results indicators related to the places offered, which have been published in a report since last year at the Central de Resultats (Results Centre, Catalan Health System Observatory) under the auspices of the AQuAS.

Furthermore, a survey of satisfaction is carried out with all residents in Catalonia which has had an effective participation of 76% this year and which offers complementary information to that of the Plan of Quality. Both instruments, beyond the fact of generating transparency and information regarding a healthy specialist training, make it possible to benchmark different centres with the aim of achieving greater competitivity and improved teaching in Catalonia.

Ultimately, guaranteeing profiles of excellence of specialist health professionals is the permanent aspiration of the Health Authority via a learning process based on supervised and mentored practice to attain the necessary professional skills to offer a safe and high quality practice. In this way, the health system will be capable of training better specialists to meet the needs of the population in health.

Post written by Alícia Avila, Assistant Director-General of Professional Planning and Development. Health Department.

Health and poverty are hereditary: can we remedy this?

17 May

In recent years, child poverty has increased in Catalonia as a result of the economic crisis. According to the 2016 figures from the Idescat, the latest figures available, and from 2009, children are the group most at risk of poverty, more than the adult population and also more than the 65-year-old or older population group.

“Child health and poverty. What can we learn from the data?” was the title of the conference held within the framework of the Celebration of the 2018 World Health Day.

Data from the latest report related to children and the effects of the crisis on the health of the population were highlighted at the conference, published by the Observatory of the Health System of Catalonia: children with a lower socio-economic level present up to 5 times more morbidity, consume more pharmaceutical drugs (three times more psychotropic drugs) than the remainder of the child population, visit mental health centres more frequently (5.9% of girls and 11.4% of boys as opposed to 1.3% and 2.2% in girls and boys with a higher socio-economic level) and are admitted more to hospitals (45 girls and 58 boys for every 1000 as opposed to 13 and 26, respectively) especially for psychiatric reasons.

A child’s health largely depends on the economy of their parents and those that belong to families with a lower socio-economic level have more health problems, a fact that can have disastrous consequences in other areas such as education and social life and which condition their future. This fact is exacerbated in the case of children with special needs or chronic diseases where their health suffers even more from the effects of poverty because in some cases their care requires specific products which families cannot afford.

This is one of the problems that we are facing right now. There is growing scientific evidence, both in biology and in social sciences, of the importance of the early years in life (including exposure in the womb) in the development of the capacities that stimulate personal well-being throughout the life cycle. Childhood is also a structural transmitter of inequalities, both from a health and socio-economic point of view. If nothing is done, boys and girls who belong to families with few resources run the risk of growing up into adults with worse health and a lower educational and socio-economic level than others.

What can we do? We can of course strengthen the social welfare state, with structural and institutional reforms which are more than ever necessary. Educational policy is fundamental, especially by reinforcing primary education, guaranteeing equal opportunities and putting the spotlight on those children in a disadvantaged situation. Once they are adult, active labour policies are also needed. And from health policies, despite their eminently palliative nature, primary and community care is particularly important as is guaranteeing care to all children.

Post written by Anna García-Altés (@annagaal).

The speed and relevance of assessing health products

5 Oct

The European market of health products has been widely affected by the sudden emergence of a new legislative framework with the new regulations (2017/745 and 2017/746). The subtle difference between directive and regulation is paramount, they say, but we’ll leave that for another occasion. This new framework in the field of health products is characterised among other things by:

A stricter control of high risk health products (for example, certain implantable products)
The strengthening of rules of clinical evidence by including a coordinated procedure at a European level for the authorisation of multicentre clinical research.
The reinforcement of requirements and the coordination between European countries regarding controls and after sales aspects.

In this context of important changes, the assessment community is also clearly active. Thus, on 19 June this year, there was a panel on health products at the international meeting of Health Technology Assessment HTAi, where a new and innovative Italian programme for health products was presented.

The programme, explaining the work carried out over several years in terms of definition and its pilot phase, includes three work packages: appraisal, methodology and monitoring. In another panel closely related to the previous one, in the field of methodology, the presentation of the categories to decide on what to invest in and what to disinvest win clearly stood out.

When talking about monitoring and collecting information, an example that stood out was the debate on the need for early assessments given that the life cycle of a health product tends to be short.

The significant increase in new products available and all the work objects previously mentioned are some of the things that position the importance of specific assessment in health products.

The importance of the assessment of health products is, therefore, undeniable. In the joint production work package of EUnetHTA JA3, in which AQuAS is participating, as many or more assessments of “other technologies” (health products, health interventions,…) have been planned as of the known assessments of drugs. In a sense, the numbers of one or other necessity are matched. The importance of the assessment of “other technologies” was in fact reflected in the HTAi annual meeting in a presentation by Wim Goettsch, director of EUnetHA.

The identification and prioritisation of products to be assessed (the Horizon Scanning system), as well as the balance between innovation and divestment, are also extensively discussed subjects and under continuous debate. Thus, in the REDETS network (in which the AQuAS is also actively participating) and with the leadership of Avalia-T, a public access tool was identified that helps in approaching this subject: the PriTec.

Assessment, therefore, can help directly in the use, management and sustainability of different health systems. In conclusion, new opportunities are provided for improving decision making in the area of health products and some of them will come through demonstrating efficiency by means of the adequate use and definition of health technology assessments (HTA).

Post written by Emmanuel Giménez.

Crisis, inequalities and policies: proposed intinerary

7 Sep

Unfortunately, inequalities in health are still an issue today including in our country. The crisis of recent years has once again put the spotlight on this subject.

This is why we propose an itinerary taking us through the different texts which we have published on the subject in this blog and, in particular, we invite you to read the original texts which are mentioned here in more depth, a large proportion of which have been elaborated at the AQuAS.

In September of last year, Luis Rajmil reflected on social inequalities in child health and the economic crisis in this post placing the concepts of equality, equity and reality on the agenda for discussion.

“At present, there is enough accumulated information that shows that life’s course and the conditions of prenatal life as well as life during the first few years are very influential factors in the health and social participation of an adult to come.”

At a later date, the Observatory of the effects of the crisis on the health of the population published its third report but prior to that, a post was published with a collection of individual thoughts and reflections on this subject by Xavier Trabado, Angelina González and Andreu Segura focussing on, respectively, the effects of the crisis on the mental health of people, the coordination of different mechanisms in primary and specialised care, the urgency for community health actions and the need to engage in intersectoral actions.

“It is urgent to put community health processes into action; processes in which the community is the protagonist, which constitute the shift from treating an illness to a bio-psycho-social approach which gives an impulse to intersectoral work in a network with local agents, with who there is the shared aim of improving the community’s well-being. Based on the needs detected and prioritised in a participatory way and with the local assets identified, these processes activate interventions based on evidence which are assessed”

In this other post, Cristina Colls presented an interesting case of the application of scientific evidence to political action which occurred with the revision of the socio-economic dimension of the formula for allocating resources to primary care.

“Social inequality leads to an unbalanced distribution of the population in a territory, concentrating the most serious social problems in certain municipalities or neighbourhoods having higher needs for social and health services than other territories. In this context, more needs to be done where needs are greater if the aim is to guarantee equality in the allocation of resources”

Finally, the most recent post was written by Anna García-Altés and Guillem López-Casanovas. It is a text that provides food for thought based on the latest report published from the Observatory of the Health System of Catalonia on the effects of the crisis on the health of the population.

“Understanding the mechanisms by which social inequalities have an impact on the health of the population, so as to know how best to counter or neutralise them, in any place and at any time, is an issue that must still be addressed by our social policies”

We hope that you this very short itinerary through these texts, initiatives and analyses that aim to be useful in tackling inequalities has been of interest.

Post written by Marta Millaret (@MartaMillaret)

Adjusted morbidity groups: a new population morbidity classifier

2 Feb

At present, chronic pathologies have become a challenge for health systems in developed countries. The majority of sick people that use health services have multiple morbidity and this increases with age. The presence of multiple morbidity is associated with a greater use of resources for care (both health and social) and a lower quality of life.

In this context, it is necessary to measure multiple morbidity to be able to determine its impact. There are two large sets of measurements of multiple morbidity: on the one hand, a simple count of the diseases (usually chronic) of each person and, on the other, indexes which indicate the burden of an individual’s diseases based on the ranking of pathologies giving each one a differential weighting drawn from clinical criteria provided by groups of experts and/or statistical analysis based on mortality or the utilisation of health services.

The Adjusted Morbidity Groups (AMG) are encompassed in this last group, the only one of these tools developed in Europe on the basis of a public health system, universal in nature and eminently free.

The characteristics and functioning of the AMG can be found in this article. In a nutshell, we can say that the AMG have been validated statistically, by analysing their explanatory and predictive capacity. In this validation, the AMG have shown better results than other tools in the majority of indicators studied, including those relative to social and health care.

They have also been validated clinically by primary care doctors, both in Catalonia and in the Community of Madrid. The main results of these validations are that the AMG show a good classification of the patient in terms of risk, that this good classification increases with the complexity of the patient, the preference of clinicians for this tool with respect to other tools to classify morbidity and finally, that it is a useful tool for assigning a level of intervention in accordance with the needs of patients.

From 2012, the AMG were developed in the framework of an agreement of collaboration between CatSalut and Catalan Health Institute. Subsequently, they have been implemented at a national level in 13 autonomous communities thanks to an agreement reached between CatSalut and the Ministry of Health, Social and Equality Services. As a result of the implementations done during 2015, 38 million people of the Spanish population have been classified. The final goal of this agreement is to jointly develop a tool to stratify the population and which could be applicable to the entire National Health System by means of adapting the AMG.

Similarly, the AMG are being used in several European projects concerning the stratification and integration of health and social care.

In summary, we can assert that the AMG are a new classifier of morbidity which shows comparable results -at the very least- to those provided by other classifiers on the market. On the other hand, having been developed using the information from our health system (universal and eminently free), it can not only be adapted to new requirements or strategies of our organisations, but also to other health systems as well as to specific areas or populations. Evidence of this last point is that at the moment, together with the Master Plan of Mental Health and Addictions of the Health Department, a specific classifier is being developed for patients with mental health and addiction problems.

Post written by David Monterde (Oficina d’Estadística. Sistemes d’Informació. Institut Català de la Salut), Emili Vela (Àrea d’Atenció Sanitària. Servei Català de la Salut) and Montse Clèries (Àrea d’Atenció Sanitària. Servei Català de la Salut).

Health data: Do we give citizens what they want?

24 Nov

central-de-resultats-qualitatiu — Dolores Ruiz-Muñoz, Anna García-Altés and Hortènsia Aguado

The right to receive advice with regards to the information available on the network is reflected in the Carta de drets i deures de la ciutadania en relació a la salut i l’atenció sanitària (Citizens Bill of Rights and Duties relating to health and healthcare), updated in 2015. In particular, it specifies that a person has the right to obtain accurate and reliable recommendations from health professionals in terms of the available health information on the network (web pages, applications, etc…).

It is a fact that, from different professional sectors, we are more and more frequently identifying citizens as a key group to take into consideration when communicating the outcomes of our work, including the health sector. The different actors involved in disseminating health information resulting from the Catalan health system activity are no exception. When we publish our data we do it more and more in a way that is not only aimed at informing health professionals on the one hand but also at being accountable to citizens as end users.

But have we really asked citizens what information they want to obtain from us?

From the Results Centre of the Catalan Health System Observatory we publish a series of reports annually with quantitative indicators that aim to measure, assess and disseminate the results obtained in the different areas of the public health system. Up to the present, to disseminate this information beyond the comfort zone of the health sector, we have published a series of infographics with the information that we have considered to be most relevant for citizens, making the effort to create a user friendly format.

During the first semester of 2016, we spent time reflecting on our labour and we realised that we did not in fact know whether what we were publishing for citizens really reached or interested them. We did not even know what it was that citizens wanted to receive from us. To answer these questions we carried out a qualitative study of Catalan citizens to find out what their needs for health information were, but not limiting ourselves to that produced by the Results Centre.

We created three discussion groups and invited citizens randomly selected from Registre Central d’Assegurats del CatSalut (CatSalut’s Central Registry of the Insured) to freely express what they felt their necessities for health information were. What we discovered was that the population is not interested in receiving health information in a general or systematic way but rather only wants health information when they have a specific personal need and which is directly related to what is affecting them at a given time. They are not interested, therefore, in receiving health information about the population as a whole nor of how the health system works. They state that this information is necessary but feel it is health professionals who need to have it and know how to manage it. In this way, they place their trust in the health system by dissociating themselves from this type of information.

Furthermore, they consider it of interest that the information be made available on the networks but state that, whether they actively search for it on the internet or not, what they need is to be able to contrast the information at a later stage with their primary care physician or specialist, and that it be this professional who discerns what the best information available is for each occasion. What is more, they clearly identify this professional as being the person who needs to know the health information produced systematically by the Catalan health system.

We presented the results of this study at a recent congress, to be exact, the XXXIV Congress of the Spanish Society for the Quality of Healthcare and the XXI Congress of the Andalusian Society for the Quality of Healthcare, generating a very interesting posterior debate regarding these results. One of the attendees at the congress stated their concern for the fact that citizens were not interested in receiving general health information. The debate centred on how we could educate the population into showing an interest in this information and on how to make it reach them. We believe that the key underlying question here is whether this need be done at all.

The public at large have an overwhelming amount of information at their disposal on an infinite number of different subjects on a daily basis. It seems clear that when a person has a specific need regarding their state of health they consult a professional in whom they trust. It is obvious that to us, as healthcare professionals, we will always feel that the information we produce is of such interest as to make others want to know about it, but it is also probable that our enthusiasm makes us biased when interpreting reality. We should perhaps ask ourselves whether we need to make the effort to provide the public with information they say they do not need nor interests them, and whether we are prepared to accept their decision and respect it.

Post written by Dolores Ruiz-Muñoz, Anna García-Altés and Hortènsia Aguado.

Atlas of Variations in Medical Practice in the National Health System

17 Nov

Over the last decade, an increase of international initiatives aimed at analysing the variability in practice or the variability in the performance of health systems in a more or less systematic way has been confirmed. The most significant experiences have been carried out in contexts having a deep-rooted culture in assessment and in systems in which the choice of insurers and the competition among providers are one of their most characteristic features. (This table shows some of these experiences). The calling of these initiatives has been, and is, to facilitate public debate on the importance and impact of unjustified variability in healthcare. However, it has been in the last few years, a time spurred on by the economic crisis, that the term value for money has gained greatest significance. It is in this same period that the representation of variations in practice has acquired new interest and its usage has begun to guide decisions on financing or disinvestment among other things.

In Spain, the Atlas of Variations in Medical Practice in the National Health System, also known as Atlas VPM, is a pioneering initiative in Europe which was developed somewhere between research in healthcare services (1) and the support given to public decisions. For the last fifteen years, Atlas VPM has been systematically analysing the performance of the 17 health systems that make up the Spanish Healthcare System. The variations in diverse surgical procedures have in this way come under scrutiny as have those in oncology and orthopaedics, in the variability of hospitalisations in risk populations (chronic patients or mental health patients), in the variation in the treatment of certain pathologies such as coronary heart disease or cerebrovascular ischaemic disease, or in hospital care received by population subgroups such as children or the aged.

Atlas of variations of procedures of questionable value

The “Atlas of unjustified variations in procedures of questionable value” is the latest Atlas of the series and provides a local context for the aforementioned value for money. This project was created in 2013 as a combined initiative between the Atlas VPM and the National Network of Health Technology Assessment Agencies, with the goal of supporting a national strategy aimed at reducing the use of questionable value procedures by encouraging the use of better alternatives or by redirecting resources to other more cost-effective activities.

Ideally, this Atlas establishes an empirical and dynamic performance target by using real terms of comparison obtained in similar health environments and by highlighting margins for improvement for each provider as well as making learning among peers possible when designing strategies for corrective adjustments.

***

After almost fifteen years since the project was launched, ten Atlases have been generated (in different formats) as well as innumerable thematic and methodological articles. Nevertheless, the impact of these research efforts goes beyond merely having created an awareness of the existence of a serious problem difficult to resolve; 1) the provision of services in Spain does not seem to follow a pattern related to the health needs of the population so that the access to effective healthcare and insurance seems to depend on one’s place of residence; 2) the marginal cost incurred when providing services often exceeds the marginal benefits of these; 3) the place where a service is provided is decisive in the health results a patient obtains as well as in the associated cost.

On the contrary, the Atlas VPM has also fostered the translation of these results into the arena of healthcare policies. We congratulate ourselves that AQuAS, with whom we have maintained a close collaboration over the years, is leading the creation of an Atlas for Catalonia. This is the first initiative that has, within the context of the National Health System in Spain, institutionalised the study of unjustified variability in healthcare.

(1) Atlas VPM originated and gained momentum within the much missed Network of Research in Results and Healthcare Services (RED IRYSS), coordinated at the time by AATRM under the guidance of Salvador Peiró finding inspiration in an epistemological and methodological approach known as The Dartmouth Atlas of Healthcare Quality.

Post written by Enrique Bernal-Delgado and Sandra García-Armesto for the Atlas VPM group. Unidad de Investigación en Servicios y Políticas de Salud. Instituto Aragonés de Ciencias de la Salud.

If this subject is of interest to you, a related event, Jornada de presentació dels Atles de variacions de la pràctica clínica del SISCAT, will take place in Barcelona next Monday 21 November. The aim of this event is to present publicly SISCAT’s Atlas of variations in medical practice and to promote its value for professionals as a tool in the management and assessment of the healthcare system.

The “perfect” health system

20 Oct

Mark Britnell is an international expert in health systems having held several senior positions in the NHS and currently provides consulting services for several countries. With this wealth of experience, Britnell wrote a book in 2015 with the inspiring title of, In search of the perfect health care system (1). In it, Britnell examines the dilemmas facing governments, the global challenges such as demographic, epidemiological, technological and economic transitions, as well as the more specific cases facing each country.

A significant portion of the book, more than half, is dedicated to examining individual countries grouped by continent: the Asian region including Australia (with large countries from Japan, China and India, to small densely populated enclaves such as Singapore and Hong Kong) Africa and the Middle East (just three very different examples such as Qatar, Israel and South Africa), Europe (from Portugal to Russia via the Nordic countries, Germany, Italy, France and the English) and the Americas (from the north; Canada, USA and Mexico and the south, such as Brazil). Too bad that the section on the Iberian Peninsula only speaks of our western neighbours (the eastern side but a general walk through).

There is no questioning that Britnells’ knowledge has been acquired first hand, given his worldwide expertise in conferences and consultancy. As the author mentions, he is often asked which country has the best health care system? Since the WHO report, Health systems: Improving performance (2), published in 2000, several country rankings have been published according to the assessment of their health systems using a variety of methodologies and outcomes. The table below serves as an example.

pons-comparison-health-systems

Nowadays, rankings proliferate as can be seen in universities and research institutions/centres. The indicators may be different, but it seems that one may always end up finding the most favourable ranking for them. Catalan public universities are a good example, given that centre advertises their position – besides that of excellence in comparison to other universities which are not necessarily British – in the ranking system which makes it stand out to a greater degree that other Catalan universities.

Britnell, getting back to our point, after so many rankings, lectures and consulting, make a proposal on what the best health system might be by taking the best areas from the different countries. If the world could have a perfect health system, it would have to possess the following characteristics:

–   Universal healthcare values (UK)
–   Primary health care (Israel)
–   Community services (Brazil)
–   Mental health and welfare (Australia)
–   Promoting health (Scandinavian countries)
–   Empowerment of patients and communities (certain African nations)
–   Research and development (USA)
–   Innovation and new ways of doing things (India)
–   IT and Communication technologies (Singapore)
–   The capacity of choice (France)
–   Funding (Switzerland)
–   Care for the elderly (Japan)

References

(1) Britnell M. In Search of the Perfect Health System. London (United Kingdom): Palgrave Macmillan Education ; 2015.

(2) The World Health Report 2000. Health systems: improving performance. Geneva (Switzerland): World Health Organization (WHO); 2000.

(3) Where do you get the most for your health care dollar?. Bloomberg Visual Data; 2014.

(4) Davis K, Stremikis K, Squires D, Schoen C. 2014 Update. Mirror, mirror on the wall. How the performance of the U.S. Health Care System Compares Internationally. New York, NY (US): The Commonwealth Fund; 2014.

(5) Health outcomes and cost: A 166-country comparison. Intelligence Unit. The Economist; 2014.

Post written by Joan MV Pons.

Broadening perspectives in health service assessment

8 Sep

What lies behind a significant volume of hospital readmissions? What makes a service present a good healthcare praxis? What obstacles are there when changing to a healthcare model such as in major out-patient surgery which encourages patients to go home on the same day as their operation? Do managers and nursing staff have the same opinion about what efficiency is in an operating theatre? What is the perception of professionals of the possible benefits of people-centred attention?

Do we all see a dragon?

Drac

Reality is complex and therefore approaches are needed which facilitate the interpretation and understanding of that reality. With qualitative research, places can be reached otherwise unattainable when using other methodological aproximations. When answering questions like those we asked ourselves previously, a truly qualitative approach is required. We need to make the approach using an adequate and credible technique to validate the process of all those involved and to ensure precision in results as is done in quantitative research but not forgetting that we need to be critical and independent in the analysis made.

We will briefly outline the evolution of the qualitative approaches in the context of the assessment of health services. A reflection on the usefulness of qualitative techniques in the assessment of health services or medical technologies is not a new one and you can find a series on this subject in the British Medical Journal of 1995 and in the Health Technology Assessment report of 1998.

bmj-1995-eng

Health assessment agencies have given great importance to questions about the scientific evidence available when talking about the efficiency and safety of treatments and biomedical interventions of a clinical nature. Randomized controlled trials and systematic reviews are considered to be the reference standards for causal atributions of the benefits of an intervention for the improvement in the health status of patients.

Society has evolved and the needs of the system adapt to this. We formulate new questions related to the preferences and expectations of users facing treatment and how different professionals contribute to providing better results in patient health care. One must bear in mind that when assessing the benefits and results of attention given, many factors come into play.

In this context, the paradigm of evidence based medicine and the supposed superiority of quantitative approaches and of some study designs above others, have created obstacles in the application of qualitative research. In this sense, the letter to the editors of the British Medical Journal signed by more than 70 researchers of reference for giving their support to qualitative research is clear proof of this remaining obstacle.

bmj-2016-eng

Questioning the efficacy of a medical drug cannot be answered using a qualitative approach but we can broaden the scope of questions that we pose ourselves.

For example, we can consider asking ourselves questions, among others, about the preferences of patients, the perception of the benefits of a medical drug, the expectations or opinion of professionals that prescribe it or the possible reasons for a low adherence of the medical drug.

Another scenario could be that of a patient with osteoarthritis who has undergone a knee replacement (arthroplasty) and who is being attended by several professionals such as the primary care doctor, the traumatologist surgeon, the anaesthetist, the nurse, the physiotherapist and other professionals if the patient has other comorbidities. That patient has certain preferences and expectations which need to be understood and then give the health care to cover those needs, which can go beyond the mere surgical procedure.

With qualitative research we develop a discourse, texts, opinions and perceptions of people, communities, with images, perspectives, ideologies and complexities. We must guarantee rigour and that the photograph and interpretation of reality that we make remain valid and coherent for the research group and the populaton or group of people that we are assessing.

The application of qualitative techniques has been on the rise using interviews, semi-structured questionnaires, field notes, focus or discussion groups to gather the opinion of different groups of professionals and users.

From my point of view, there are three examples which can be of great use to know the approach and the process in carrying out an assessment of services with a qualitative approach:

Avoiding the classic metrics means being able to measure in an alternative or complementary way by combining different approaches be they qualitative or quantitative. I find the introduction to qualitative research we find in René Brown’s TED talk the power of vulnerability. This qualitative researcher recommends we measure that which is apparently unmeasurable and go more in depth into the complex phenomenon of vulnerabilty.

We broaden perspectives by understanding the reality from within, by bearing in mind the multiple existing points of view to improve that which is disfunctional or by identifying better practices to spread them. We can measure what we want to measure. It will be necessary to adapt the approach to the context and audiences and to continue progressing to show with rigour and practice the usefulness of qualitative approaches.

We continue learning. This time, it has been at the Congrés Iberoamericà de Recerca Qualitativa en Salut (in Twitter #IICS2016) held in Barcelona, 5-7 September. The Agència de Qualitat i Avaluació Sanitàries de Catalunya (AQuAS) and the Agència de Salut Pública de Catalunya (ASPCAT) shared the stand to explain their experiences.

2016 Congreso Iberoamericano de Investigación Cualitativa en Salud — Santi Gómez Santos (AQuAS/ASPCAT), Dolors Rodríguez Arjona (ASPCAT), Mireia Espallargues (AQuAS), Vicky Serra-Sutton (AQuAS)

Post written by Vicky Serra-Sutton (@vserrasutton), sociologist PhD in AQuAS.