Referral sent
The GP has completed the formal referral step.
Plain-language explanation
Everyone is doing something. The pathway still does not move.
A GP has referred. A provider is waiting for information. A municipality is waiting for treatment to begin. Each organisation has a task, yet nobody appears to own the next step.
A process gap is our working definition for cross-organisational stagnation where ownership of the complete pathway is missing, unclear or ineffective.
A simple example
Activity is not the same as progress.
A referral is sent and received. Information is missing, another organisation waits for treatment to start and the person contacts everyone. Each party may have completed its own task while the complete pathway remains stuck.
Receipt confirmed
The next organisation has the file.
The transition stalls
Nobody makes sure missing information is requested and the next action actually begins.
The person becomes coordinator
The patient or family member is left connecting organisations, information and deadlines.
Evidence boundary: this is an illustration. Caretrap is still investigating how often this occurs and whether it can be measured reliably.
An essential distinction
Not every waiting period is a process gap.
Pathways can stall for different reasons. The research proposal is designed to distinguish those reasons instead of treating every delay as process failure.
No suitable place is available
The handover may be correct, but treatment or support capacity is genuinely unavailable.
Deliberate delay or a different choice
A clinician may have a medical reason not to take a step, or to take it later.
Ownership does not work
The pathway stalls because nobody owns the whole, organisations disagree or responsibility is not matched by authority.
Provisional signals
Six things that may point to a process gap.
These are not validated patterns and not a scoring tool. They help describe what may be happening more precisely.
Transfer without genuine takeover
A referral or file has been sent, but nobody confirms that the next responsibility has actually been accepted.
Nobody monitors the whole
Each organisation performs a task, but nobody checks whether the complete pathway is moving.
Waiting without a responsible contact
You do not know who monitors changes or what happens if your condition deteriorates.
Responsibility without authority
Someone wants to help but cannot make other organisations respond, decide or cooperate.
Escalation without a route
A step remains open, yet nobody can explain who has the power to change that.
Information does not travel
You repeatedly retell the same story or resubmit the same documents.
Practical starting point
Do not start with blame. Make the pathway visible.
A timeline does not solve the pathway, but it can turn vague handovers, open actions and missing ownership into concrete questions.
DateOrganisationContactQuestion and responseAction ownerDeadlineWhat actually happened
Do not become the human fax machine.
Ask whether the organisations involved can exchange information directly, where legally and practically possible.
Calmly, factually and without blame.
“Every organisation appears to have completed its own part, but the complete pathway is not moving. Who can review the whole?”
Complaints officer at the care organisationIndependent client supportCare mediation through the insurerMunicipal support desk, complaint or objection routeReferrer or GP when a handover is unclear
What Caretrap is researching
The complete cross-organisational pathway is rarely the unit being measured.
Registrations provide substantial information about individual organisations. They reveal far less about one person's full route across several organisations.
Process gap
A working definition for stagnation where ownership is missing, unclear or ineffective.
System footprint
A provisional term for the reconstructable route of organisations, contacts, actions and elapsed time.
First method test
The first question is whether such a pathway can be reconstructed safely, transparently and reproducibly.
Measure where the pathway breaks down before deciding how to fix it.
What we explicitly do not claim yet
No prevalence, solution or return on investment without real case data.
- We do not know how often process gaps occur.
- We do not know how much delay or harm they cause.
- The six signals have not been validated in real cases.
- We do not yet know which intervention would work best.
- This phase does not propose a new coordinator, role or service desk.
- We do not publish cost, saving or return claims without reliable data.
Does this sound familiar?
Lived experience can help improve the questions research asks.
Caretrap does not take over individual cases. Experiences help identify which process questions should be tested.