Perceptions of patients, nurses, other healthcare workers, and general hospital managers about the content and challenges of transforming the clinical pathway into an integrated clinical pathway: a qualitative pilot study

Aim. Hospital health care of a patient represents a part of the patient's "journey" through the healthcare system and as such is not delivered independently, but in a personalized integrated manner. To achieve a better outcome of personalized medical health care of patients in hospital, it is necessary to systematically transform the existing clinical pathways (CPs) into integrated clinical pathways (ICPs). The aim of the study was to investigate stakeholder's perceptions of the content and barriers to transforming CPs into ICPs on the example of a general hospital in Slovenia. That is how we obtained microdata for systemic measures at the level of general hospitals in Slovenia.Material and methods. The cross-sectional study used a qualitative method with interviews and focus groups with patients, nurses, other healthcare workers and managers working in ICPs for chronic kidney disease and hip replacement in a typical Slovenian hospital.Results. The results showed that ICPs could be divided into five basic phases. In all phases, additions to the existing CPs in order to turn them into ICPs were necessary, which was an additional burden, especially for the nurses.Conclusions. Personalized health care through ICPs is patient-centered, shorter, holistic, coordinated, continuous, of higher quality for patients and sustainably more efficient for providers.