Care programmes and integrated care pathways.

PURPOSE: The article discusses how care programmes and integrated care pathways can be linked, finding ways to improve healthcare process professional and logistical quality from a supply chain and a network point-of-view. DESIGN/METHODOLOGY/APPROACH: The authors argue that owing to cost containment goals and increasing healthcare demand, healthcare services systems are challenged to improve service quality, whilst at the same time finding ways to improve delivery processes. It explores if the combination of two instruments, care programmes and integrated care pathways, can meet both goals. This combination is illustrated by an example from the Institute of Mental Health Care Eindhoven en de Kempen.
FINDINGS: Analysis suggests that care programmes can be combined with integrated care pathways, leading to a situation where both quality and process improvement can be reached. These instruments are complementary. RESEARCH LIMITATIONS/IMPLICATIONS: The article is largely conceptual; ideas are presented to stimulate thinking rather than to prove an argument. PRACTICAL IMPLICATIONS: Combining care programmes and integrated care pathways has implications for the way we think about and organise healthcare processes. ORIGINALITY/VALUE: There have been few publications on instruments combining both a network and a supply chain approach to describe and understand healthcare processes.