The wasted Disposables in Dutch Hospital’s health care pathways

Abstract

The Dutch health care system is a large drain on the Dutch national budget. With the Dutch hospitals costing 20 billion euros yearly. Six billion euros, of the total 20 billion euros are spend on goods and materials. If a part of these goods are wasted within the health care system, the costs of this system could be reduced by reducing this waste. This report has researched the possible waste reduction possible in health care pathways by researching three health care pathways in Dutch hospitals. This report answers the research question: How can the possible wasted disposables be reduced in health care pathways in Dutch hospitals . This question is answered with the creation of a framework based on multiple case studies created from research done in the three health care pathways, Percutaneous Coronary Intervention, Cataract and Hip Fractures. These health care pathways are visualised using IDEF0 diagrams, and the disposable flows are shown in matching tables. To provide constructive solutions to possible wasted disposables within health care pathways in Dutch hospital in general, a framework is constructed. This framework generalizes health care pathways to four basic steps, diagnostics, pre-operation, operation and post operation. The main solutions to reduce the chance of wasted disposables within health care pathways, is to improve the amount of standardisation of disposables used and needed, and improve the communication and collaboration between parties within the health care pathways. These solutions are based on the case studies and the literature research on the Dutch health care system in general, Dutch hospitals and the goods logistics within the Dutch health care system. This also provides an answer to the research question, on how to reduce disposables being wasted in health care pathways in Dutch hospitals. This thesis research is conducted on three care pathways are researched in multiple hospitals, but not all Dutch hospitals. Different results could be reached when researching other health care pathways or different hospitals, but the framework provided in this report could be valid for these different situations. Both the validity of this research and the constructed framework has to be researched in subsequent research studies. These subsequent research studies have to verify if the conclusions derived in this research is valid for other health care pathways and if the framework is applicable and if it has achieved its objective.