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- Title
Gesundes Kinzigtal Integrated Care: interim results of the external evaluation.
- Authors
Siegel, Achim; Köster, Ingrid; Schubert, Ingrid; Hölzel, Lars; Stoessel, Ulrich
- Abstract
Introduction: Gesundes Kinzigtal Integrated Care (GKIC) is a population-based integrated care system in Southwest Germany [1]. The GKIC management is accountable for about 31.000 insurants of two statutory health insurers in the region, AOK Baden-Wuerttemberg and LKK Baden-Wuerttemberg. Several external evaluation studies are to provide evidence on GKIC's comparative health care quality. Aims: To summarize and discuss the results of the two most important evaluation studies of GKIC, performed by independent research institutes. Results: A prospective controlled cohort study assessed GKIC's effects on (1) patient satisfaction, (2) patient participation in medical decisions and (3) patients' quality of life. Here, no significant intervention effect could be demonstrated. Another quasi-experimental controlled trial (still pending) assesses the level and development of over-, under- and mis-use of health care by surveying more than 30 indicators of health care quality in the intervention region (Kinzigtal region) and a control region (the remaining parts of Baden-Wuerttemberg). These indicators are derived from health insurers' claims data, comprising the years 2004 (baseline year) and 2005 until 2011 (follow-up period). Besides providing inconclusive results for many indicators, interim results referring to the years 2004-08 demonstrate slight tendencies of a comparatively higher and a comparatively rising health care quality in the intervention region. Discussion: As both of the above-mentioned studies do not follow a randomized design, the strength of the respective evidence is limited. Scope and relevance of these limitations, however, seems to be different in both studies. This issue will be discussed in greater detail in the oral presentation. The discussion will also provide some lessons to be learnt with respect to similar studies in the future.
- Subjects
GERMANY; POPULATION research; MEDICAL care; PATIENT satisfaction; HEALTH attitudes
- Publication
International Journal of Integrated Care (IJIC), 2013, Vol 13, p1
- ISSN
1568-4156
- Publication type
Article