Evaluation and Policy Research

1. What are Standard Clinical Pathways (CP) and Clinical Practice Guidelines (CPG)?

- A Standard Clinical Pathway (CP) is a pre-established plan based on Clinical Practice Guidelines (CPG) that outlines the sequence of treatments, treatment times, and medical procedures to help healthcare institutions provide appropriate care.

- The purpose of CP is to standardize care appropriately to ensure efficient use of resources, prevent treatment delays, and improve the quality of healthcare. CP includes not only the treatment process but also diagnostics, tests, patient education, communication with other departments, etc.

2. Purpose

- This research aims to verify the standard clinical pathways and performance indicators proposed by institutions participating in the fourth stage of the Korean Medicine and Western Medicine Collaboration pilot project in 2024. The study will examine the validity of the elements of collaborative CPs applied to major diseases by institutions in the pilot project and the healthcare outcomes (e.g., treatment duration, treatment costs) resulting from applying these CPs. It will also evaluate the variability and coefficient of variation in CPs, as well as supplement the evaluation items from recent studies on Korean Medicine and Western Medicine CPs, ultimately developing a final method for evaluating CPs at collaborative hospitals.

- After determining the final evaluation of the CPs at the pilot project hospitals, the study will aggregate and analyze the CP models for each disease collected from the institutions to create the optimal model. A disease-specific prototype CP for Korean Medicine and Western Medicine collaboration will then be developed and implemented across all pilot institutions.

3. Methods

- The study will first assess the current status and extent of CP usage in each institution, and then restructure the CPs based on Korean Classification of Diseases (KCD) codes.

- Factors that determine the extent of CP utilization, including treatment quality, patient satisfaction, convenience of care, staff satisfaction, and management efficiency, will be investigated to analyze the CPs.

- This will include patients whose data (demographic, clinical) and medical records (CP records, variance records, detailed statements, etc.) were collected from institutions that applied CP.

- The study will apply the Integrated Care Pathway Appraisal Tool (ICPAT) to evaluate the components of CPs and assess performance based on the CP application rate. Surveys and institutional assessments will also be conducted to measure satisfaction with CP application, and data will be compiled and analyzed.

- Statistical techniques will be used to assess the results from ICPAT, examining the acceptance and variations of collaborative CPs for target diseases at each institution. The study will also analyze the extent to which goals for improvement are achieved through the application of CPs at each institution.