Drs. Niels Groeneweg

Introduction

In 2009 Niels Groeneweg has become a PHD candidate for 2 days per week (Thursday/Friday). His research project is entitled ‘The financial and non-financial incentives on Quality-of-care in the Dutch managed care’ (supervisor: Prof. Dr. M.W. van Tulder). The other 3 days he’s working as a project leader, researcher and policy advisor at Agis Health insurance company.


Short Biography

Niels Groeneweg studied Physiotherapy at the ‘Hogeschool van Amsterdam’ (HvA) and graduated in 1999 with honors. After several years of practice in the primary and secondary care he finished the study Health Sciences at the University Utrecht (UU) in 2007 with a thesis about expert practice in primary care and received his MSc degree. As part of this study, he developed and validated the ‘Physiotherapy Expert Practice Questionnaire©’ (PEPQ©). During this study he first worked as a physiotherapist in his own private practice in a regional hospital and later as a policy advisor at ‘Agis Health insurance company’ (Agis). After his graduation he has been working as a project leader, researcher and policy advisor at Agis. And in 2009 he started his PhD at the VU University, department Health Sciences, faculty of Earth & Life Sciences.


Fields of interest

Pay-for-performance, quality indicators, managed care, market research, consumer preferences, prevention/lifestyle, primary care, physiotherapy, electronic patient record, clinimetrics, customer research, managed competition, health care innovation, health procurement.


Education/ academic training

• 2010: Prince2 Practitioner ( ISES International BV).
• 2009: Prince2 Foundation (ISES International BV).
• 2007: MSc in Health Sciences (Universiteit Utrecht). Thesis entitled: ‘The development and expert validation of the PEPQ©’ (supervisor: Prof. Dr. P.J.M. Helders).
• 1999: BHealth in Physiotherapy (Hogeschool van Amsterdam). Dissection research project at the VU entitled: ‘The sartorius and gracilis muscle and the functional stability of the knee. An anatomical study of the innervation, insertions, architecture and functions of humans, compared to the cat’
  
  

In 2006, the Health Insurance Act was enacted in the Netherlands. The Act is one of the most significant health policy changes in Europe in decades, and reformulated the Dutch health insurance system according to the principles of Enthoven. Central idea behind Enthoven’s model, so-called managed competition, is that insurers will purchase desirable and cost-effective care form care providers. Providers will have to compete for differentiated contracts, based on quality differences, on this health provision market. Insurers can offer attractive health care packages through efficient purchasing of care. In order for this new system of managed competition to succeed in providing “value for money”, consumers must be sensitive to the price and quality of competing health insurance options. ‘Consumer demand’ provides an incentive for insurers to control costs by being efficient purchasers of health care. But potential ‘efficiency gains’ due to the introduction of managed competition depends for a large deal on the way insurers contract care from health care providers. There are various types of incentives to contract health care providers. Getting the incentives right is one of the main challenging within managed competition.

Promising ways to purchase health care efficiently is using the ‘Pay for Performance’ (P4P) model; improving quality of care through rewarding better care.

In this project research is done on the introduction of differentiated contracts by an healthcare insurer based upon the P4P model.


Relevant links

•  iHEA: http://www.healtheconomics.org/
• Zichtbare Zorg: http://www.zichtbarezorg.nl/
• Centrum Klantervaring Zorg: http://www.centrumklantervaringzorg.nl/
•  ProQolid: http://www.proqolid.org/
  

Secondary activities

• Member of the HvA curriculum advisory board.
• Chairman of the Paramedical Health insurance Platform.
• Member of the ‘Scientific Researchers Forum CQ-index’.