Rehabilitation 2021
Sector-specific reviews
The review plan adjustment was implemented without problems, thanks, in part, to the excellent preparatory work of the clinics and hospitals. In 2022, a further simplification is planned in cardiac rehabilitation. In the future, the only performance test will be the six-minute walk test, thereby dispensing with bicycle ergometry. By introducing this change, ANQ is recognizing that the tendency for the health of patients to deteriorate makes it ever harder for them to perform bicycle ergometry.
The results of reviews from the data year of 2019 demonstrated that treatments in Swiss rehabilitation centres significantly improved the quality of life and independence of patients. The transparent results were published at the end of March and were accompanied for the first time by infographics depicting the patient population and the review results for neurological and pulmonary rehabilitation.
Link to press release
Link to the infographic for neurological rehabilitation
Link to the infographic for pulmonary rehabilitation
At the beginning of December, the rehabilitation monitoring system ReMoS went live. This online platform enables medical institutes to check the quality of their data during the year and to finalise the submission of the data to the Charité in Berlin. The platform’s secure environment is also used to communicate the institute-specific evaluation reports. ReMoS is a comprehensive collaborative project developed by ANQ in close partnership with the Charité Berlin and the IT service provider INMED GmbH.
Training courses
At the beginning of the year, the rehabilitation department took over all administrative tasks related to rehabilitation training. Likewise at the beginning of the year, the EG Training Courses was founded; all trainers become members of this group. Both innovations have proved very successful.
The online training format developed at the beginning of the year was employed not only in place of face-to-face teaching but also for internal hospital training. Dependent on the prevailing circumstances of the pandemic, the training courses were held online or on site. Unfortunately, some courses had to be cancelled in 2021, partly due to the pandemic. On the other hand, the demand for on-site hospital training was gratifyingly high.
In the reporting year, ANQ commenced preparatory work and recruitment of speakers for the new EBI training course, which it will be offering from spring 2022.
Quality Committee (QC)
QC Rehabilitation
The QC Rehabilitation met a total of five times, both in face-to-face and online meetings. The main topics of discussion focussed on reporting the review results from 2020 and the approval of the national comparison reports. In addition, they discussed the additional evaluation for the 2019 data year, examining the non-response rate for PROMs. An analytical paper on the results of the evaluation is currently being prepared. In addition, the QC discussed how the review plan could be further developed over the medium term with a focus on reviewing health-related quality of life. Lastly, other important topics of discussion were the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and the additional burden on rehabilitation centres.
In April, Dr. med. Pierre-André Rapin of the Institution de Lavigny announced his resignation from the QC. Consequently, a decision was made to look for both a replacement for nursing and a replacement for therapy to serve on the QC. Caroline Beeckmans of Leukerbad Clinic was successfully recruited to represent nursing. The replacement for therapy was appointed at the beginning of 2022.
Expert groups (EG)
EG Training Courses
The newly formed EG Training Courses brings together all trainers and is divided into different working groups. These deal with general issues and how to further develop the individual training formats. The members did not meet for a face-to-face session but instead communicated online.
EG EBI Standards
There was no meeting of the EG EBI Standards during the reporting year. Individual EG members contributed to developing the EBI training courses. The plan is to revise the recommendations of the EBI in 2022.