New framework and indicators for quality of healthcare in police custody

A conceptual framework and a set of quality indicators have been developed to measure the quality of care for detainees in police custody. Development occurred in co-creation with various stakeholders, including the police, (forensic) healthcare professionals, people with lived experience, educators, and stakeholders from adjacent sectors. The framework and indicators form the first steps toward insight into quality of healthcare in police custody and create opportunities for organizational learning. This project was conducted by Nivel in collaboration with Amsterdam UMC and GGD Amsterdam. The results are now published in two publications in BMC Public Health and BMC Health & Justice.

Conceptual framework for quality of care

Key aspects for measuring the quality of care in police custody were identified and brought together into a conceptual framework covering 14 domains. The domains cover aspects about preconditions for delivering healthcare in police custody, the healthcare provision process, and outcomes of the care provision.

This is the first time that all key stakeholders have come together to develop a shared approach to measuring the quality of healthcare in Dutch police custody. It lays the foundation for a shared understanding and collaboration to improve the quality of care

Nienke Zinger, MSc

Researcher (PhD candidate) Organisation and Quality of Healthcare

From conceptual framework to quality indicators

Based on the 14 domains of the framework, a core set of 39 fixed and an additional set of two to five context-dependent indicators for specific areas of interest were developed to measure the quality of healthcare in police custody. The next steps are to put these findings into practice by measuring the indicators using data from electronic health records and to assessing their feasibility and applicability across different providers of healthcare in police custody.

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The results of this study have been published open access in:

About the study

The first phase of the project focused on identifying the key aspects that should be taken into account when measuring the quality of healthcare in police custody. This was done by means of a literature review and consultations of various stakeholders. These insights were then used to develop a set of quality indicators. For this part various stakeholders contributed through brainstorming sessions, a questionnaire, and multidisciplinary group meetings. The study was funded by ZonMw.