Cross-Institutional Pathway Guidance - Chance or Extra Burden?

Area of Science:

• Health Informatics
• Digital Health
• Patient Navigation Systems

Background:

• Healthcare episodes, such as hip replacement surgery, involve complex coordination and information flow.
• Patients often face challenges in managing appointments and communicating with providers during their treatment journey.
• Existing health-IT systems may lack seamless integration for comprehensive patient guidance.

Purpose of the Study:

• To explore the requirements and design of a Pathway Navigator App for guiding patients through healthcare episodes.
• To develop a prototype of the app, focusing on a hip total endoprosthesis surgery use case.
• To assess the architectural complexities and integration challenges of such a patient-facing application.

Main Methods:

• Requirements analysis for patient guidance during healthcare episodes.
• Design and demonstration of potential user interfaces for the Pathway Navigator App.
• Prototypical development of the app, including an HL7 interface for appointment data.
• Evaluation of data integration from hospital information systems and general practitioner (GP) IT systems.

Main Results:

• A functional prototype for a Pathway Navigator App was developed, demonstrating core features.
• An HL7 interface was successfully implemented for integrating appointment data from hospital systems.
• Significant challenges were identified in integrating data from GP IT systems due to a lack of comparable standards.
• The architecture required was more complex than initially anticipated.

Conclusions:

• The Pathway Navigator App shows potential for guiding patients through surgical procedures like hip replacement.
• HL7 standards facilitate integration with hospital information systems for appointment data.
• Interoperability with GP IT systems remains a challenge, highlighting the need for standardized data exchange.
• The future Swiss Electronic Patient Dossier may offer enhanced integration possibilities within the broader health-IT ecosystem.