National standards and guidelines determine to a large extent how hospitals should organise their multidisciplinary oncological care, in the best interests of their patients. Hospitals that do not do so run the risk that health insurers will no longer enter into contracts with them. This can lead to a deterioration in the care, which means that patients with cancer will have to travel further to receive their treatment.
Three hospitals in a region have joined forces to jointly maintain and further improve the quality of healthcare in the region. These hospitals asked Vintura to work together with medical specialists and managers to draft a plan for realising these ambitions.
Value and necessity of collaboration
Together with the specialists, we explored the value and necessity of collaboration. This was in some parts a tense process: collaboration naturally also means that you have to make sacrifices. Clear objectives and criteria proved to be essential for arriving at widely supported choices.
A shared destination
In addition to expressing the importance of the collaboration, we also investigated the opportunities for synergy: matters that hospitals can’t realise individually for themselves, but which can be jointly achieved. Together with the specialists and hospital organisations, we took a realistic view and formulated the vision and ambition. Because the initiators from the three hospitals got to know each other better and came to value each other more during this process, this led to a positive atmosphere in which the hospitals are deliberately seeking each other out and actually delivering the care.
We have not yet arrived at the desired level of cooperation, but we are heading in the right direction and, based on growing trust, we are doing so with a lot of energy and positivity!
