Paperwork hospitals is at the expense of patients

That put hospitals and confirmed by two surveys conducted by KPMG. The research was commissioned by the Ministry of Health and the Dutch Association of Hospitals (NVZ). The NVZ says the situation is derailed and demands action.

Office Job

The picture emerging from the investigations rice confirms previous research by the NOS: nurses and doctors spend an increasing proportion of their time in office rather than on direct patient care.

Over the years, the bureaucracy in hospitals - and also in the rest of the care - become significant in scale. This process has been reinforced since the year of transparency began in March 2015. This minister Schippers wanted to give citizens more insight into the quality of care.

Nobody disputes the usefulness of capturing outcomes of treatments. Registration, for example, makes it possible to determine how a certain operation, can best be carried out.

Dozens

Hospitals take part in an average of 45 such quality records, 19 marks and seven patient experience surveys. The four largest non-teaching hospitals fill even 120 in there.

The Albert Schweitzer Hospital has been somewhat weeded in this forest of registrations, but there are still nearly sixty, says quality consultant Wilma Jansen of the Dordrecht hospital.

Moreover, not all hospitals a picture of the total cost of all the paperwork together, because they do not cost capture centrally but by specialty. And there's a number of registrations not included, because it is given a temporary subsidy.

Even more

Gupta Consultants estimated in a similar study commissioned by an insurance company, the total cost of all quality records at between 70 and 165 million euros.

In addition, apart from the hospitals also included university hospitals and private clinics. Furthermore, in this study, this includes even subsidized registrations now.

Patient Care

Director Margot van der Starre of the NVZ therefore estimated total cost over 80 million euros per year. "It costs too much," she says. "Eighty million every year. That money we can spend much more on patient care."

For many of those registrations same data is recorded each time a slightly different way. So time-consuming and inefficient.

Breast Cancer Registration

"It is completely derailed and if we do nothing it will get worse," says Van der Starre. As an example she mentions the cancer registration. The residue left behind from tumor tissue is one of the most important clues to the quality of the performed operation.

But that is only one of a long list of 117 points which kinds of data are required. And that point, Van der Starre says, "is completely overwhelmed by all the others. You see the forest for the trees anymore."

Tomorrow Minister Schippers of Public Health will explain in parliament about the numerous paperwork in care. Member of Parliament Lea Bouwmeester (PvdA) says knowing the reports, but says it is not up to the Chamber to determine how it should be checked for quality.

VVD Arno Rutte says something similar. "The trick is to register only criteria that are critical for quality." For his part must determine which healthcare providers with patient organizations. "That's not to politicians, but Minister Schippers herein may be play a role by the parties to work together at the table."

Rinke van den Brink, Editor healthcare / © NOS