1. Organization Context
A Local Health Authority (ASL) coordinates the delivery of Assistance Levels (LAP) with the support of Contracted Doctors and Territorial Functional Aggregations (AFt).
- The ASL must ensure compliance with the LAP defined by regional and national regulations, ensuring the coverage of essential services for the population.
- To verify the quality and appropriateness of services, the ASL uses the New Guarantee System (NSG) indicators, which allow for an objective evaluation of the healthcare offer in the territory.
- Additionally, the ASL is responsible for validating reports from Contracted Doctors for expenditure control and administrative transparency.
In this scenario, a Management Dashboard becomes essential to collect data from the systems used by contracted doctors and compare them with LAP and NSG indicators, providing a unique tool to:
- Monitor clinical-assistance performance.
- Verify the correct application of the requirements established by LAP and NSG.
- Validate expenditure and activity reports, ensuring maximum transparency.
2. Focus on LAP and NSG Indicators
Assistance Levels (LAP)
- Description: Establish the minimum standard of healthcare services, defining the quantity and quality of services to ensure uniformity across the territory.
- Objective: Provide a set of essential services to all citizens, reducing disparities.
New Guarantee System (NSG)
- Description: It is the system introduced to evaluate the ability of Regions and ASLs to provide LAP according to quality, appropriateness, and safety criteria.
- Indicators: For example, inappropriate hospitalization rates, waiting times, adherence to diagnostic-therapeutic pathways, clinical outcomes.
- Purpose: Allow continuous monitoring of the effectiveness of care, providing comparable data shared with central authorities.
The Dashboard integrates both perspectives, highlighting deviations from expected targets in real-time and identifying areas for improvement.
3. The Integrated Dashboard
The Management Dashboard aggregates and analyzes information from the systems used by contracted doctors, allowing the ASL to:
- View clinical activity in real-time (e.g., visits, services, prescriptions) comparing it with the thresholds set by LAP.
- Measure NSG indicators (e.g., hospitalization rates, delays in access to care, clinical outcomes) to verify adherence to standards and define corrective actions if necessary.
- Validate Reports:
- Automated collection of expenditure data (fees, reimbursements, incurred costs).
- Creation of compliance reports concerning LAP parameters and NSG indicators.
- Ability to generate reports for the regional authority, with a detailed analysis of any discrepancies.
Main Features
- LAP Dashboard: shows the level of coverage of essential services, highlighting the most critical or under-threshold services.
- NSG Module: allows filtering and comparing the main quality and safety indicators, highlighting gaps or best practices.
- Reporting Section: provides an economic-financial overview of activities, with validation tools and non-compliance notes in case of discrepancies.
4. High-Level Steps (HLS) Flow
- Requirements Gathering
- Consultation with ASL managers, AFt coordinators, and contracted doctors’ representatives to define KPIs aligned with LAP, NSG, and expenditure objectives.
- Identification of the types of reports needed for report validation.
- Design
- Definition of data architecture (APIs and connectors) to securely and structuredly acquire information from the systems of contracted doctors.
- Development of layouts and reports dedicated to LAP, NSG, and reporting.
- Development
- Implementation of back-end modules for data processing and front-end modules for visualization and interaction.
- Creation of customized dashboards for different roles (ASL, AFt coordinators), with profiled access and analysis features.
- Testing & Deployment
- Verification of the reliability of KPI calculations (LAP, NSG) and reporting processes.
- Release in the production environment with dedicated training for operators and managers.
- Monitoring & Optimization
- Collection of feedback and continuous adjustment of the dashboard to any regulatory changes or new NSG indicators.
- Periodic review of validation functions to improve the accuracy and transparency of reports.
5. Main Benefits
- Structured Adherence to LAP: the dashboard acts as a “central control” to ensure that Assistance Levels are effectively delivered according to established standards.
- Constant Evaluation with NSG Indicators: allows direct comparison of obtained results with quality and appropriateness parameters, intervening promptly on deviations.
- Effective Report Validation: thanks to integrated data and automated reporting, the ASL verifies the congruity between delivered services, declared costs, and service standards.
- Transparency and Sharing: the ASL, AFt coordinators, and contracted doctors operate on a single platform, promoting shared responsibility and smooth communication.
- Data-Driven Approach: strategic and operational decisions are based on real-time updated information, improving the overall efficiency and governance of the system.
Conclusion
This Management Dashboard, which integrates clinical and administrative data from contracted doctors, offers the ASL and AFt coordinators a powerful tool to validate reports, verify compliance with Assistance Levels (LAP), and continuously measure the New Guarantee System (NSG) indicators. The result is a more transparent healthcare system, aligned with regulatory standards, and focused on the quality of care for citizens.