University of Twente Student Theses
Staying ahead by learning from the best: a benchmarking study among four academic radiotherapy centers in Europe
Beer, R.D. de (2008) Staying ahead by learning from the best: a benchmarking study among four academic radiotherapy centers in Europe.
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| Abstract: | Context and aimof the study Increasing demands from the Dutch government and individual patients are leading to an extended focus on the quality of care given at the Netherlands Cancer Institute – Antoni van Leeuwenhoek Hospital (NKI-AVL). Therefore, the NKI-AVL is exploring ways to improve their services. Good experiences of the NKI-AVL with benchmarking studies were the main motivation for starting this research. The choice for benchmarking the radiotherapy department is based on a recommendation from prior research. This study claims that the radiotherapy department is a good candidate for benchmarking, as the process is stable and has relatively little variation. Furthermore, this research assumes that radiotherapy is a mostly separate department for which a reasonable amount of data is available. This thesis describes a benchmarking study among four academic radiotherapy centers in Europe: NKI-AVL, Amsterdam, The Netherlands Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden Medizinische Fakultat und Universitatsklinik Carl Gustav Carus, Dresden, Germany Institut Jules Bordet, Brussels, Belgium. The aim of this study is developing a benchmarking framework with performance indicators that makes it possible to compare the different academic radiotherapy centers, and to eventually indicate improvement options for each of the partners involved. As the title explains, the main goal of this study is to learn from each other. To be able to reach this goal the following research questions were posed: How can a benchmarking framework be constructed and which indicators can be used to benchmark the performance concerning quality and efficiency, on a MACRO and MESO level, of academic radiotherapy centers in Europe? How do the different academic radiotherapy centers in Europe perform when benchmarked on quality and efficiency indicators on a MACRO and MESO level, and what improvement suggestions can be given to the individual academic radiotherapy centers and to academic radiotherapy centers in general? Methodology Literature reviews and desk research are performed for the identification of the contingency factors, the development of the framework and the performance indicators, and the execution of the stakeholder analysis. Interviews and visits of the benchmarking partners are used for retrieving the data necessary for comparing the partners. Conclusions for the NKI-AVL Based on the analysis of the performance indicators, the NKI-AVL has the best practices for the following indicators: risk analysis, shortness of the waiting times, measuring patient Page 3 satisfaction, number of publications and patients in a clinical trial, instrumentation and dosimetry, and the use of IMRT in breast cancer patients. |
| Item Type: | Essay (Master) |
| Clients: | Netherlands Cancer Institute – Antoni van Leeuwenhoek Hospital |
| Faculty: | BMS: Behavioural, Management and Social Sciences |
| Subject: | 85 business administration, organizational science |
| Programme: | Industrial Engineering and Management MSc (60029) |
| Link to this item: | https://purl.utwente.nl/essays/59284 |
| Export this item as: | BibTeX EndNote HTML Citation Reference Manager |
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