How to prioritise diseases when developing clinical pathways

Article type
Authors
Gu W1, Wei D1, Yao L1, Yuan T1, Wei L1, Ma W1, Shang W1, Li Y1, Xun Y1, Shi X2, Gu KY1
1Evidence-Based Medicine Center, School of Basic Medical Sciences, Lanzhou University, Lanzhouï¼› Key Laboratory of Evidence-Based Medicine and Knowledge Translation of Gansu Province, Lanzhou
2Gansu Rehabilitation Center Hospital, Lanzhou, 730000,China
Abstract
Background:The clinical pathway can raise the quality of healthcare, control the excessive increase medical costs, and ensure the effective use of medical resources by providing a reasonable diagnosis and treatment plan. The formulation of a clinical pathway is a relatively complex process that requires a considerable amount of manpower and time, cost and resources.The selection and prioritisation of clinical pathway theme is the important link to optimise resource utilisation.

Objectives:To investigate and analyse the principles, standards and procedures of the selection and prioritisation of clinical pathway theme in the manuals.

Methods:We searched the manuals of clinical pathways in PubMed and Google and filtered the documents that meet the criteria. Using a standardised form to extract and analyse the manuals’information on the principles, standards and procedures of the selection and prioritisation of clinical pathway theme.

Results:A total of 22 manuals met the inclusion criteria, which were published between 1993 and 2017. 11 (50%) reported the the prioritisation of selecting topic or disease, Of which 8(36.4%) reported the standard of the selected topic, 3 (13.6%) reported how to select the topic. The selection criteria are mainly the high cost, high risk, common diseases. The selection method are mainly literature review, situational analysis and questionnaire survey.

Conclusions: 50% of the manuals reported the standard of the selected topic, only a few manuals reported the selection process, while its method is not clear.