Patient-centric Care and Chronic Disease Management: A Stakeholder Perspective

Area of Science:

• Health Services Research
• Health Informatics
• Healthcare Management

Background:

• Political commitment to patient-centric integrated care via eHealth faces implementation challenges.
• Limited evidence exists on successfully organizing these complex services despite numerous pilots.
• Analysis of European Union-funded projects reveals varied stakeholder impacts.

Purpose of the Study:

• To explore reasons for the difficulty in meeting political commitments to patient-centric integrated care facilitated by eHealth.
• To analyze benefits and costs for diverse stakeholder groups from eHealth-enabled integrated care projects.
• To identify key factors for achieving wide acceptance and long-term sustainability of integrated care services.

Main Methods:

• Analysis of outcomes from various European Union-supported implementation projects.
• Focus on benefits and costs for different stakeholder groups involved or impacted by service re-engineering.
• Examination of socio-economic returns and clinical impacts.

Main Results:

• Re-engineering services can significantly shift benefits and costs among stakeholder groups.
• Positive clinical impacts and socio-economic returns alone do not guarantee acceptance or sustainability.
• Stakeholder economic interests are critical; few will act against them.

Conclusions:

• Successful eHealth-facilitated integrated care is a social, organizational, and business innovation, not just technical.
• A deeper understanding of benefits, costs, and new business models for each stakeholder is crucial for a win-win situation.
• Health policy should promote organizational integration with shared budgets and outcome targets to foster sustainability.