ECHO aimed at building a common knowledge infrastructure based on existing datasets, which ultimately allowed international healthcare performance comparisons.
Conceived as a pilot study, ECHO set about the task of bringing together patient-level data from Denmark, England, Portugal, Slovenia and Spain, and contextual information -demographic, socioeconomic, and healthcare supply data.
This knowledge infrastructure allows evaluating more than 40 performance indicators, carefully developed to avoid inappropriate cross-country comparisons.
The ECHO knowledge infrastructure allows the study of several performance dimensions (equity, effectiveness, safety and efficiency) at the international, national, regional, and even provider level.
| Institution | Country | Website |
|---|---|---|
| INSTITUTO ARAGONES DE CIENCIAS DE LA SALUD (IACS) | Spain | Institute for Health Sciences in Aragon (IACS) website |
| University of Southern Denmark (SDU) | Denmark | University of Sourther Denmark - Statens Institut of Folkesundhed (National Ins… |
| Escola Nacional de Saude Publica | Portugal | Escola Nacional de Saude Publica - Universidade Nova de Lisboa |
| Universität für Gesundheitswissenschaften, Medizinische Informatik und Technik (UMIT) | Austria | UMIT - The health and Life Sciences University |
| University of York | United Kingdom | University of York - Health Services and Policy Research Group |
| Nacionalni Inštitut za Javno Zdravje (NIJZ) | Slovenia | Nacionalni Inštitut za Javno Zdravje (NIJZ) - National Institute of Public Heal… |
| European Health Management Association (EHMA) | International | European Health Management Association (EHMA) |
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The ECHO Project Coordination Office manages requests for data access within the scope of the purpose and aims of the ECHO Project and under the terms of the data-sharing agreements reached by participating institutions. Researchers can contact the Project Coordination Office via the ECHO projects' website contact form or e-mail (see links above).
Requests should be accompanied by a research project proposal, including a data management plan in a standardised format.
| Title | Free keywords | Type of output | Topics | Link |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| The ECHO Project official website | ||||
| European Journal of Public Health Special Issue: Unwarranted variations in health care performance across Europe: Lessons from the ECHO Project | ||||
| Handbook on methodology: ECHO information system quality report EUROPEAN COLLABORATION FOR HEALTHCARE OPTIMIZATION (ECHO) | ||||
| ECHO Atlas Information Tool | ||||
| ECHO eHandbook on Methodology | ||||
| ECHO indicators set | ||||
| European Collaboration for Healthcare Optimisation (ECHO) Indicators Definition Crosswalks | ||||
| European Collaboration for Healthcare Optimisation (ECHO) Data Model Specification | ||||
| ECHO Atlas N1 on Lower-Value Care (LVC) | ||||
| ECHO Atlas N2 on Potentially Avoidable Hospitalisations (PAH) | ||||
| ECHO Atlas N3 on Coronary revascularization (CV) | ||||
| Hospital Surgical Volumes and Mortality after Coronary Artery Bypass Grafting: Using International | ||||
| Acknowledging the role of patient heterogeneity in-hospital outcome reporting: Mortality after acute myocardial infarction in five European countries |
ECHO eHandbook on Methodology - training materials
http://www.echo-health.eu/handbook/
Keywords: methodology, variation metrics, efficiency, international comparison, bench-marking, health system performance, healthcare quality
The ECHO project consortium can offer training on the secondary use of administrative healthcare data to assess healthcare performance across and within countries. Particularly, ECHO published freely online a Handbook on Methodology providing insight into:
- The ECHO performance assessment model
- Issues in the international comparison of healthcare performance and healthcare quality indicators
- Variation metrics and different approaches to measuring variations in medical practice and measuring socioeconomic equity
- Measuring efficiency as part of healthcare performance assessment
Additionally, the ECHO project coordination office can offer technical and methodological training on:
- The ECHO research infrastructure,
- Use of the ECHO Atlas Tool for health system assessment and international comparison, and
- Data Quality Assessment and Data Quality Assurance measures