Swiss Home Care Data: Better data on the quality of home care
At a glance
- Project leader : Prof. Dr. Julia Dratva
- Project team : Andreas Boss, Laure Dutoit, Eva Hollenstein, Dr. Florian Liberatore, Sonia Pellegrini, René Schaffert, Sarah Schmelzer, Adrian Spörri, Aylin Wagner
- Project status : completed
- Funding partner : SNSF (NFP 74 «Gesundheitsversorgung» / Projekt Nr. 167499)
- Project partner : Spitex Schweiz, Universität Bern / Institute of Social and Preventive Medicine, Schweizerisches Gesundheitsobservatorium OBSAN
- Contact person : René Schaffert
Description
Little is known in Switzerland about the availability, demand for, and quality of home care services. This study, which is scheduled to start in mid-2017, aims to fill the gap. The study will analyse as well as further develop the database HomeCareData (HCD) operated by the Swiss Home Care Association (Spitex).
BACKGROUND
The number of elderly people requiring long-term care is growing
all the time. At the same time, long-term care is increasingly
being provided in the home setting rather than in nursing homes or
hospitals – applying the principle of “out-patient before
in-patient”. Although the importance of home care is growing,
little is known about the utilization of home care services as well
as the quality of the care provided. The database of the Swiss Home
Care Association (Spitex) provides a major data source for
developing this knowledge.
AIM
The aim of the study is to use the data held by the Spitex
association to investigate nursing home-care services usage and
quality . In addition, proposals for the future use of the data
pool, including refinement, will be developed.
PROJECT DESCRIPTION
Once the quality of the data has been reviewed, the first phase of
the project will involve the testing of a linkage between the data
held by the Spitex association and other health statistics in order
to develop patient profiles featuring clinical and sociodemographic
characteristics and the use of nursing services. The second phase
of the project will focus on refining the Spitex database. In
particular, the satisfaction of patients and their relatives with
home care will be measured and the existing nursing quality
indicators will be updated. In the final phase, stakeholders will
be consulted and recommendations for the database´s future use will
be developed.
RESULTS
The project revealed the potential of the information collected at
the individual level in the HCD data pool for in-depth
investigations, e.g. on the profile of the clients or on the need
for care. At present, however, the data do not yet meet the
requirements for generalizable analyses, mainly due to a lack of
representativeness.
Based on these insights and the results of interviews with
stakeholders, it is recommended to focus the future development of
the HCD data pool on improving data quality and representativeness.
Therefore, existing structures can be strengthened to support home
care organizations, including the creation of new, sustainable
suport structures. In this way, the data pool will be further
improved and well reputed. This could motivate new organizations to
contribute their owndata.
A further opportunity to strengthen the data pool arises from its
use for quality measurement. In the project, possible quality
indicators were examined for application in the Swiss context.
Seven of 43 potential indicators were assessed as appropriate by
healthcare experts and Spitex-nursing professionals.
Further information
Publications
-
Wagner, Aylin; Schaffert, René; Zúñiga, Franziska; Dratva, Julia,
2020.
Selecting home care quality indicators for Switzerland.
In:
WCPH2020 : 16th World Congress on Public Health, Online, 12-16 October 2020.
-
Wagner, Aylin; Schaffert, René; Dratva, Julia,
2020.
Winterthur:
ZHAW Zürcher Hochschule für Angewandte Wissenschaften.
Available from: https://doi.org/10.21256/zhaw-20440
-
Wagner, Aylin; Schaffert, René; Möckli, Nathalie; Zúñiga, Franziska; Dratva, Julia,
2020.
BMC Health Services Research.
20(366).
Available from: https://doi.org/10.1186/s12913-020-05238-x
-
Wagner, Aylin; Zúñiga, Franziska; Rüesch, Peter; Schaffert, René; Dratva, Julia,
2020.
PLOS ONE.
15(12),
pp.e0244577.
Available from: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0244577
-
Wagner, Aylin; Zúñiga, Franziska; Schaffert, René; Dratva, Julia,
2020.
Selecting home care quality indicators for Switzerland.
In:
Swiss Public Health Conference 2020, Luzern (Virtual Conference), 2.-3. September 2020.