Massachusetts Health Quality Partners today released survey data on patients’ experiences with care in primary care practices across the Commonwealth. (press release, link to reports and search)
This is the first patient experience survey since health reform was enacted in Massachusetts in 2006. Also, this survey took place in the midst of national health reform debates and discussions in Massachusetts about reforming the health care payment and delivery systems.
Many of these patient experience measures provide valuable information to health care providers and to public policymakers as they seek to make care more patient-centered, through models such as medical homes and chronic disease management programs, for example. As the press release describes with concrete examples, care providers look at this data to determine where they are doing well and where they need to improve, and then they take steps to make those improvements. The information also serves to inform consumers as they seek to choose providers or assess the quality of care provided by their current providers. There is data on both adult and pediatric practices.
One can check out ratings from a patient’s point of view on doctors by name, or by geographic location. Results on seven quality of care measures, and patients’ willingness to recommend their doctor are reported.
Overall, there are a few areas that stand out as needing improvements: physicians’ knowledge of patients’ and their medical history, how often patients are informed of test results, and primary care physicians’ knowledge of care received by specialists to whom the patients were referred. Congratulations to MHQP for once again providing important, unbiased and insightful data for patients to use to improve their care.
-Deborah W. Wachenheim
