Laura Brereton

Reported barriers to evaluation in chronic care: Experiences in six European countries.

INTRODUCTION The growing movement of innovative approaches to chronic disease management in Europe has not been matched by a corresponding effort to evaluate them. This paper discusses challenges to evaluation of chronic disease management as reported by experts in six European countries. METHODS We conducted 42 semi-structured interviews with key informants from Austria, Denmark, France, Germany, The Netherlands and Spain involved in decision-making and implementation of chronic disease management approaches. Interviews were complemented by a survey on approaches to chronic disease management in each country. Finally two project teams (France and the Netherlands) conducted in-depth case studies on various aspects of chronic care evaluation. RESULTS We identified three common challenges to evaluation of chronic disease management approaches: (1) a lack of evaluation culture and related shortage of capacity; (2) reluctance of payers or providers to engage in evaluation and (3) practical challenges around data and the heterogeity of IT infrastructure. The ability to evaluate chronic disease management interventions is influenced by contextual and cultural factors. CONCLUSIONS This study contributes to our understanding of some of the most common underlying barriers to chronic care evaluation by highlighting the views and experiences of stakeholders and experts in six European countries. Overcoming the cultural, political and structural barriers to evaluation should be driven by payers and providers, for example by building in incentives such as feedback on performance, aligning financial incentives with programme objectives, collectively participating in designing an appropriate framework for evaluation, and making data use and accessibility consistent with data protection policies.

The underlying challenges of coordination of chronic care across Europe

An effective response to the rising burden of chronic disease requires a health system environment that is conducive to implementing structured, integrated approaches to chronic disease prevention and management. This study presents some of the reported factors hindering the successful implementation of chronic care approaches in six European healthcare systems and focuses on processes to address these. We conducted 42 semi-structured interviews with key informants in Austria, Denmark, France, Germany, The Netherlands and Spain, representing the decision-maker, payer, provider and/or patient perspective. Despite differences among the healthcare systems studied, a shared set of barriers emerged. These included: (i) a continued focus on complications management and a failure to integrate risk minimisation and disease prevention along the spectrum of care; (ii) care fragmentation acting as a barrier to better coordination; (iii) a mismatch between intent, at national level, to enhance coordination and integration, and ability at regional or local level to translate these ambitions into practice; and (iv) a lack of structures suitable to promote proactive engagement with patients in the management of their own condition. Findings suggest successful implementation of chronic care across Europe will require cross-disciplinary collaboration, raising the profile of general practitioners and nurses, designing care explicitly around the needs of the patient, and the political will to carry forward these chronic care measures.

The changing face of commissioning in England.

The governments White Paper Equity and Excellence: Liberating the NHS1 introduces the most radical changes to the English NHS since its inception in 1948. These reforms include abolition of Primary Care Trusts, the current bodies that purchase healthcare, and Strategic Health Authorities, the regional management outposts of the Department of Health. Up to 70% of the NHS budget (£80bn) will instead be routed directly from a National Commissioning Board to consortia of GPs who will have responsibility for scoping and purchasing the majority of health services for their populations. An important caveat is that these changes only affect England: the divergence of the NHS between the four countries of the UK will increase, with Scotland in particular set against market-style reforms.