Patient experience data can help hospitals understand issues with accessing care

Ipsos recently published a study examining patient perceptions about their access to care, and how it compared to the actual availability of care. The study was undertaken in Military Treatment Facilities across the United States on behalf of the Department of Defense.

By collecting data on the time when appointments are scheduled and when patients see their health care provider, health care systems learn how many days a patient waits between doctor visits. At the same time, health care systems also survey patients to understand why patients struggle with accessing care. Critically however, administrative appointment data and patient perception data are not often analyzed together.

Drs. Beatrice Abiero and Alan Roshwalb of Ipsos collaborated with members of the U.S. Military Health Services and Defense Health Agency to analyze these two data sources. In particular, the team was investigating whether patients who wait fewer days until their next appointment actually report having a better experience in making appointments and accessing their doctor compared to patients who wait longer for an appointment. Do perceptions and reality align?

The study used data from the Defense Health Agency Joint Outpatient Experience Survey (JOES) and anonymized electronic health records from nearly 140 Military Treatment Facilities. These data were collected from 2016 to 2017.

The researchers found that, as the time until an appointment increases, patient ratings of access to care declined. Furthermore, they found that even after accounting for healthcare facility differences such as mix between primary and specialty care and demographics of patients, associations remained between patient perceptions of care and their actual wait times.

These results imply that slower or more opaque administrative processes do have a relationship with patient perceptions of care. Facilities experiencing overall difficulties in their patient satisfaction ratings may be indicators of limited or poorly managed resources. Health systems can learn a great deal about “pain points” for improvement on the patient’s journey by detailed analyses of this administrative data paired with survey items to further identify and diagnose issues with access such as call center scheduling and provider availability.

The full study is available now at: https://academic.oup.com/milmed/advance-article/doi/10.1093/milmed/usz463/5697932