A study was conducted to evaluate hospital managers' need for information when determining whether they should invest in new treatments. Fifty three hospital managers from nine European countries were interviewed to gather the information. Findings of the study show that hospital managers considered clinical, economic, safety and organisational aspects of new treatment as the most important type of information. They also revealed that they like to receive information on the strategic and political aspects of new treatments.
Healthmanagement.org spoke to the researchers and asked them whether the study lists the type of information hospital managers need in order of importance. The researchers informed us that while this has not been done in this qualitative study, they are working on a manuscript that describes the results from a new quantitative study with a sample of 300 hospital managers in which the researchers used Likert scale questions to collect information in order of importance. "From our publication in Health Policy you can see that information on safety, clinical effectiveness and economics was considered important by the highest proportion of managers. So, that may give you an answer," they told Healthmanagement.org.
We also asked them to elaborate on the strategic and political aspects that hospital managers deem important. The researchers noted that nearly 20 percent of the respondents said that information on strategic and political aspects of investing in new treatments was most relevant when making decisions. "For example, a hospital has a strategic goal of being among the best in treatment of patients with diabetes, then information about the fact that introduction of a new diabetes drug could put the hospital in the forefront in the country, could have a positive impact on the decision to invest in the treatment," they explained.
This particular study is part of the AdHopHTA project. Face-to-face, structured interviews were conducted with the respondents and the hospital managers identified the clinical, economic, safety and organisational aspects of new treatments as being the most relevant for decision-making. The managers had a narrower focus on budget impact and reimbursements but were more interested in information on the political and strategic aspects of new treatments, in particular the relationship between the treatment and the strategic goals of the hospital.
The research team told Healthmanagement.org that their next study is a quantitative one with a sample of 300 hospital managers from nine European countries. The goal of this study is to use of Likert scale and ranking question to determine which information European hospital managers and clinical managers find most important as a basis for decision making on investments in new technologies.
Source: Health Policy, Interview
Image Credit: Wikimedia Commons
Latest Articles
hospital managers, information, strategic information, financial information, political aspects, new treatments
A study was conducted to evaluate hospital managers' need for information when determining whether they should invest in new treatments. 53 hospital managers from 9 European countries were interviewed to gather the information.
