[Patient based care registries as a tool to follow up services]

The Federation of Swedish County Councils and six medical specialties are working together in a project aiming to support and stimulate the development of patient based case registers as a tool to follow up, evaluate, develop and manage medical units. The project is based on participation on the part of the medical professions in a process-oriented way. Each case register shall be based on the individual patient, and will integrate inpatient and outpatient care, all medical professions and important procedures. In hematology the project also seeks to merge case costing data with the patient based case registers in order to facilitate more comprehensive cost analysis and comparison. This episodic perspective is useful for providers per se as well as in discussions between purchasers and providers as a method for understanding and analyzing medical services. The six specialties are hematology, obstetrics and gynecology, ophthalmology, otorhinolaryngology, dermatology and sexually transmitted diseases, and lastly psychiatry.