Do clinical pathways improve length of stay, hospital costs and patient outcomes?
Clinical pathways may be effective for invasive care, but current evidence is insufficient to support a universal framework for all strategies.
As a result of the relatively small number of studies meeting inclusion criteria, this evidence base is not conclusive enough to provide a replicable framework for all pathway strategies. Considering the clinical areas for implementation, clinical pathways seem to be effective especially for invasive care. When implementing clinical pathways, the decision makers need to consider the benefits and costs under different circumstances (e.g. market forces).
Rotter et al. (Mon,) studied this question.