UK - Quality improvement: patient-reported outcomes and experiences now integrated with clinical data for the first time

Citation

(2008), "UK - Quality improvement: patient-reported outcomes and experiences now integrated with clinical data for the first time", International Journal of Health Care Quality Assurance, Vol. 21 No. 1. https://doi.org/10.1108/ijhcqa.2008.06221aab.003

UK - Quality improvement: patient-reported outcomes and experiences now integrated with clinical data for the first time

UK

Quality improvement: patient-reported outcomes and experiences now integrated with clinical data for the first time

Keywords: Patient feedback, Healthcare standards, Quality improvement measures

UK hospitals can now combine their clinical data with both patient-reported health outcomes and a measurement of patient experience, for the first time.

The new service, “Patient Driven Quality”, is being developed jointly by CHKS, the leading independent provider of healthcare information, and the Picker Institute, the charity which is a leading authority on capturing patient and staff feedback and using it to improve services.

Hospitals will be able to measure the three sets of indicators, applied to particular clinical specialties, over time, and judge them against national benchmarks.

Paul Robinson, external relationship manager at CHKS, said: “There is considerable interest within the health service in the potential of PROMs – patient-reported outcome measures. We intend to make PROMs directly useful to clinicians and managers in their efforts to gain continual quality improvement and to achieve the developmental standards in ‘Standards for Health’”.

Clinicians will be able to see how their own activity compares to the health outcomes reported by patients, and what patients say about their experience of receiving that care and treatment.

Kay Usher, business manager at the Picker Institute, said: “This combination will provide a patient-focused picture of the quality and effectiveness of the service provided by a clinical specialty over time. By staging the measurements hospitals will be able to judge the impact of quality improvement measures through the litmus test of what difference they are making for patients.”

The data tools included are: CHKS’ admitted patient care data set; the EQ5D patient-reported outcome measure compared to a major new normative database; and bespoke patient experience questionnaires developed to national standards by the Picker Institute.

The combination of performance data, outcome data and patient experience data gives UK hospitals the ability to:

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  correlate activity performance data with patient health and patient experience;

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  target and evaluate quality improvement initiatives;

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  demonstrate efforts to meet standards for better health; and

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  benchmark their own performance and reputation against the national data set.

For further information: www.pickereurope.org