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Onderzoek naar het opzetten van een webbased shared care systeem voor testiskanker

Busscher, S. and Homan, A. and Maas, M. van der (2012) Onderzoek naar het opzetten van een webbased shared care systeem voor testiskanker.

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Abstract:Testicular cancer is a disease that particularly occurs to young men. The survival rate of this type of cancer is high in comparison to that of other types of cancer. After treatment there is a follow up trajectory which includes a lot of check-ups for recurrences and long term effects of treatment. After this trajectory there still is a higher than usual risk on recurrences and long term effects, though. Because of the intensity of the follow up trajectory, for both the patient and the involved health care providers, the University Medical Center of Groningen (UMCG) wondered if a web-based shared care system could help to improve this process. When the general practitioners, the general practitioner and the medical specialists would use this system, it could create a triangular relationship between them. This could improve the follow up. Webbased shared care systems are systems which could stimulate the contact between patients and health care providers and enhance the efficiency in the care processes. Because of this a research has been done which tries to answer the following question: “What do current webbased shared care systems in healthcare look like and which functions of these systems are also appropriate to implement in a webbased shared care system for the follow up trajectory of testicular cancer patients?” To answer this question two sub questions have been formulated: 1. How are existing webbased shared care systems for other disorders organized considering the possibilities of information, communication and participation? 2. What do future users see as desirable and/or important functionalities for a webbased shared care system for testicular cancer patients? Sub question one is answered by performing an inventory research. There are twenty one existing webbased shared care systems which have been analyzed based on resources from the internet and questionnaires which were sent to developers and other persons that were directly involved. The systems have been analyzed by checking for eighteen prewritten functionalities. It appeared that the functionalities ‘Monitoring symptoms in the system’, ‘asking questions to the health care provider through the system’ and ‘General information about the disease’ are the most popular. The method that is most used for logging on is with a username and a password. A little less common is the use of DigiD code. To answer sub question 2 an explorative research has been performed. The researchers have tried to analyze the needs of prospective users regarding the content of the webbased shared care system by interviewing nine patients, five general practitioners and five medical specialists. These interviews showed that a lot of the eighteen prewritten functionalities are desirable for them. It also appeared that the provision of information and communication in the follow up period was not always sufficient as it stands now. A webbased shared care system could perhaps solve these problems. The security of the system is an important thing to keep in mind for the development of the system. This research is limited by the fact that not for every system that was analyzed a questionnaire was filled in and that this information did not always match with the information found on the internet. Another limitation is the fact that the seven features of Van der Vaart et al are not completely applicable for testicular cancer. The division of the main categories information, communication and participation can be considered a strong point since it creates a clear structure for the report. The multiple choice questions have perhaps been designed a bit too much from a patient’s perspective and perhaps some possible features are missing. This last point has been countered by allowing respondents to come up with extra features. The selected respondents could perhaps be biased since the selection process for our care providers has been done for a great extent by our external principal and since the interviewed patients were all members of the patient’s organization. Because the patients are all members of the patient’s organization, they are really committed to improve the healthcare around their disease, which can be seen as a strong point. A final strong point is the fact that the questions were answered from multiple perspectives. One can conclude that a webbased shared care system is a valuable addition in the follow up trajectory for testicular cancer patients. There are no systems for other disorders available which have all the functionalities that are preferred by prospective users in a web-based shared care system for the follow up for testicular cancer patients. It is however known which functionalities are preferable in such system.
Item Type:Essay (Bachelor)
Clients:
Universitair Medisch Centrum Groningen (UMCG), Groningen, Nederland
Faculty:BMS: Behavioural, Management and Social Sciences
Subject:85 business administration, organizational science
Programme:Health Sciences BSc (56553)
Link to this item:https://purl.utwente.nl/essays/62315
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