Adipositas Care and Health Therapy (ACHT) after Bariatric-Metabolic Surgery: A Prospective, Non-Randomized Intervention Study.

INTRODUCTION: Almost 25% of German adults have obesity and numbers are rising, making it an important health issue. Bariatric-metabolic surgery reduces body weight and complications for persons with obesity, but therapeutic success requires long-term postoperative care. Since no German standards for follow-up by family physicians exist, follow-up is provided by surgical obesity centers, but they are reaching their limits. The ACHT study, funded by the German Innovation Fund, is designed to establish and evaluate the follow-up program, with local physicians following patients supported remotely by obesity centers. METHODS: ACHT is a multicenter, prospective, non-randomized control group study. The 18-month ACHT follow-up program is a digitally supported, structured, cross-sectoral, and close-to-home program to improve success after bariatric-metabolic surgery. Four groups are compared: intervention group 1 starts the program immediately (3 weeks) after Roux-en-Y gastric bypass or sleeve gastrectomy (months 1-18 postoperatively), intervention group 2 begins the program 18 months after surgery (months 19-36 postoperatively). Intervention groups are compared to respective control groups that had surgery 18 and 36 months previously. In total, 250 patients, enrolled in the intervention groups, are compared with 360 patients in the control groups, who only receive standard care. RESULTS: The primary endpoint to compare intervention and control groups is the adapted King's score, a composite tool evaluating physical, psychological, socioeconomic, and functional health status. Secondary endpoints include changes in care structures and care processes for the intervention groups. Multivariate regression analyses adjusting for confounders (including the type of surgery) are used to compare intervention and control groups and evaluate determinants in longitudinal analyses. The effect of the intervention on healthcare costs will be evaluated based on health insurance billing data of patients who had bariatric-metabolic surgery in the 3 years prior to the start of the study and of patients who undergo bariatric-metabolic surgery during the study period. CONCLUSIONS: ACHT will be the one of the first evaluated structured, close-to-home follow-up programs for bariatric surgery in Germany. It will evaluate the effectiveness of the implemented program regarding improvements in health status, mental health, quality of life, and the feasibility of such a program outside of specialized obesity centers.

Prospects for comparing European hospitals in terms of quality and safety: lessons from a comparative study in five countries.

PURPOSE: Being able to compare hospitals in terms of quality and safety between countries is important for a number of reasons. For example, the 2011 European Union directive on patients' rights to cross-border health care places a requirement on all member states to provide patients with comparable information on health-care quality, so that they can make an informed choice. Here, we report on the feasibility of using common process and outcome indicators to compare hospitals for quality and safety in five countries (England, Portugal, The Netherlands, Sweden and Norway). MAIN CHALLENGES IDENTIFIED: The cross-country comparison identified the following seven challenges with respect to comparing the quality of hospitals across Europe: different indicators are collected in each country; different definitions of the same indicators are used; different mandatory versus voluntary data collection requirements are in place; different types of organizations oversee data collection; different levels of aggregation of data exist (country, region and hospital); different levels of public access to data exist; and finally, hospital accreditation and licensing systems differ in each country. CONCLUSION: Our findings indicate that if patients and policymakers are to compare the quality and safety of hospitals across Europe, then further work is urgently needed to agree the way forward. Until then, patients will not be able to make informed choices about where they receive their health care in different countries, and some governments will remain in the dark about the quality and safety of care available to their citizens as compared to that available in neighbouring countries.

Development of Entrustable Professional Activities for entry into residency at the Charité Berlin.

Background: Entrustable Professional Activities (EPAs) have emerged as a new approach to operationalise the workplace performance expectations for the transition from under- to postgraduate medical training. However, the transferability of such EPAs from one context to another appears limited. In this article, we report on the results of our approach to define a full set of core EPAs for entry into residency with the expectation to be performed under distant supervision. Methods: The EPA development involved a modified, three round Delphi study, conducted at the Charité - Universitätsmedizin Berlin. The supervision level was operationalised as supervisor being distantly available and findings being reviewed. The threshold for consent was reaching a content validity index of a least 80%. The Delphi study involved experienced physicians (n=45) and resulted in a set of core EPAs with the descriptions of the categories: title, specification/limitations, conditions and implications of entrustment decision, knowledge, skills, and attitude, link to competencies and assessment sources. Results: The response rates were 76-80% in the Delphi rounds. Key to the content validation process for the performance expectation was deciding on "to act under distant supervision". The results are full descriptions of 12 core EPAs, organised into 5 overarching EPA domains. Conclusions: Our systematic approach yielded the definition of 12 core EPAs for entry into residency at the level of "act with distant supervision" according to the practice in our context. This report may support other medical schools who plan to implement EPAs into their curricula.

The role of hospital managers in quality and patient safety: a systematic review.

OBJECTIVES: To review the empirical literature to identify the activities, time spent and engagement of hospital managers in quality of care. DESIGN: A systematic review of the literature. METHODS: A search was carried out on the databases MEDLINE, PSYCHINFO, EMBASE, HMIC. The search strategy covered three facets: management, quality of care and the hospital setting comprising medical subject headings and key terms. Reviewers screened 15,447 titles/abstracts and 423 full texts were checked against inclusion criteria. Data extraction and quality assessment were performed on 19 included articles. RESULTS: The majority of studies were set in the USA and investigated Board/senior level management. The most common research designs were interviews and surveys on the perceptions of managerial quality and safety practices. Managerial activities comprised strategy, culture and data-centred activities, such as driving improvement culture and promotion of quality, strategy/goal setting and providing feedback. Significant positive associations with quality included compensation attached to quality, using quality improvement measures and having a Board quality committee. However, there is an inconsistency and inadequate employment of these conditions and actions across the sample hospitals. CONCLUSIONS: There is some evidence that managers' time spent and work can influence quality and safety clinical outcomes, processes and performance. However, there is a dearth of empirical studies, further weakened by a lack of objective outcome measures and little examination of actual actions undertaken. We present a model to summarise the conditions and activities that affect quality performance.