News

Students examine financial flows in healthcare and welfare

Map financial flows

Four students from the faculties of Economics, Public Administration and International Management are doing a research on Financial flows in health and welfare in the districts Het Lage land, Prinsenland en Vreewijk.

As a part of their graduation Kakit, Jasper, Gökcan and Gülcan aim to check the finances for care and welfare within a district, from the cash flows AWBZ, Wmo and healthcare system (ZVW).

The purpose of this research is to identify the current situation and map it: what products and services are delivered in the district to which customers and which organisations deliver these products and services?

In this way, the cash flows for care and welfare should be transparent, so that the base of these facilities is controlled.  The research builds on existing research performed in 2010 by the municipality of Rotterdam: ‘Care in Rotterdam’, which revealed that a complete overview of the municipal funds in care and welfare misses. Furthermore, Erik Burgmeijer, just graduated from the faculty of Architecture TU Delft, is going to deal with the visualisation of the flows on maps of the different districts.

In an interview with Gökcan en Gülcan, the two students explain more about the research they have been doing over the past two months: ‘At the moment all the organisations that are present in the district are known, based on Socard data (GGD) and previous inventory. With this information, we now proceed with the investigation. To be able to store the collected data properly, an information matrix is made and filled in. This way, the information is kept transparent and clear’.

‘The hardest part’, says Gülcan, ‘was seeing the wood for the trees, especially in determining by which cash flows an organization is covered: AWMZ, Wmo or the healthcare system (ZVW). Currently (and in 2013) there is a shift from AWBZ to Wmo. This means that the municipality is responsible for more tasks, because more organizations fall under the Wmo, but that this must be paid with the same original budget’.

Gökcan explains: ‘At the moment we are looking at which organizations can be approached, based on the surveys.  Aim is to approach at least half of the organsiations per district to make an appointment for an interview. In order to get a good overall picture, the interviews held are based on a fixed questionnaire’.

So far it appears that larger organizations are often willing to participate in the study, but that smaller organizations, against all expectations, claim not to have enough time to get involved.

The curious students share their experiences: ‘When visiting a community centre, residents fire off their opinions on the situation as soon as they have figured out what we’re up to. By performing field work we really get to know what the residents think, and that is what it is all about’.