Moving Parkinson care to the home.

In many ways, the care of individuals with Parkinson disease does not meet their needs. Despite the documented benefits of receiving care from clinicians with Parkinson disease expertise, many patients (if not most) do not. Moreover, current care models frequently require older individuals with impaired mobility, cognition, and driving ability to be driven by overburdened caregivers to large, complex urban medical centers. Moving care to the patient's home would make Parkinson disease care more patient-centered. Demographic factors, including aging populations, and social factors, such as the splintering of the extended family, will increase the need for home-based care. Technological advances, especially the ability to assess and deliver care remotely, will enable the transition of care back to the home. However, despite its promise, this next generation of home-based care will have to overcome barriers, including outdated insurance models and a technological divide. Once these barriers are addressed, home-based care will increase access to high quality care for the growing number of individuals with Parkinson disease. © 2016 International Parkinson and Movement Disorder Society.

Density of Patient-Sharing Networks: Impact on the Value of Parkinson Care.

BACKGROUND: Optimal care for Parkinson's disease (PD) requires coordination and collaboration between providers within a complex care network. Individual patients have personalised networks of their own providers, creating a unique informal network of providers who treat ('share') the same patient. These 'patient-sharing networks' differ in density, ie, the number of identical patients they share. Denser patient-sharing networks might reflect better care provision, since providers who share many patients might have made efforts to improve their mutual care delivery. We evaluated whether the density of these patient-sharing networks affects patient outcomes and costs. METHODS: We analysed medical claims data from all PD patients in the Netherlands between 2012 and 2016. We focused on seven professional disciplines that are commonly involved in Parkinson care. We calculated for each patient the density score: the average number of patients that each patient's providers shared. Density scores could range from 1.00 (which might reflect poor collaboration) to 83.00 (which might reflect better collaboration). This score was also calculated at the hospital level by averaging the scores for all patients belonging to a specific hospital. Using logistic and linear regression analyses we estimated the relationship between density scores and health outcomes, healthcare utilization, and healthcare costs. RESULTS: The average density score varied considerably (average 6.7, SD 8.2). Adjusted for confounders, higher density scores were associated with a lower risk of PD-related complications (odds ratio [OR]: 0.901; P<.001) and with lower healthcare costs (coefficients: -0.018, P=.005). Higher density scores were associated with more frequent involvement of neurologists (coefficient 0.068), physiotherapists (coefficient 0.052) and occupational therapists (coefficient 0.048) (P values all <.001). CONCLUSION: Patient sharing networks showed large variations in density, which appears unwanted as denser networks are associated with better outcomes and lower costs.

The Voice of the Parkinson Customer.

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: To improve the care for patients with chronic neurological conditions like Parkinson's disease, identifying the core needs of patients is crucial. In this article, we present the Voice of the Customer approach (originally developed in the field of industry to probe the clients' needs), a novel methodology to identify these needs. METHODS: A group of 12 discussants carried out in depth interviews to patients (n = 20), relatives (n = 12) and healthcare professionals (n = 11). The interviewers combined the most informative quotations into a comprehensive video, which was used as feedback to the interviewees. The interviewees then identified the most important needs in a consensus meeting. RESULTS AND CONCLUSIONS: The approach revealed that patients were more concerned about the impact of Parkinson's disease on their daily lives than about the bio-medical aspects of the disease. Their top unmet needs were: (1) more self management; (2) better interdisciplinary collaboration between different healthcare professionals; (3) more time to discuss the future and possible scenarios; and (4) a healthcare professional acting as a single point of access, acting as personal case manager, either to solve problems directly or to direct patients to the professional best equipped to address the problem at hand. These results can now be used to further optimize the care for patients with Parkinson's disease.