Article Text
Abstract
Patient-centered organisations Healthcare organisations now integrate patient feedback into value-based compensation formulas. This research considered Stanford Healthcare’s same-day feedback, a programme designed to evaluate the patient experience. Specifically, how did patients with cancer interviewed in the programme assess their physicians? Furthermore, how did assessments differ across emotional, physical, practical and informational needs when interviewed by volunteer patient and family partners (PAFPs) versus hospital staff?
Patient–physician communication barriers Integral to this research was Communication Accommodation Theory (CAT), which suggests individuals adjust interactions based on conversational roles, needs and understanding. Previous influential research was conducted by Frosch et al (2012) and Di Bartolo et al (2017), who revealed barriers to patient–physician communication, and Baker et al (2011) who associated CAT with these interactions. However, we still did not know if patients alter physician assessments between interviewers.
Volunteers collect patient needs This mixed methods study worked with 190 oncology unit patient interviews from 2009 to 2017. Open-ended interview responses underwent thematic analysis. When compared with hospital staff, PAFPs collected more practical and informational needs from patients. PAFPs also collected more verbose responses that resembled detailed narratives of the patients’ hospital experiences. This study contributed insightful patient perspectives of physician care in a novel hospital programme.
- healthcare quality improvement
- qualitative research
- quality measurement
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Footnotes
Contributors AL conceived the idea of this research and collected and processed data. AL, AP, US and LFC analysed the quantitative and qualitative data and revised the final manuscript together.
Funding This study was supported by a Stanford University Undergraduate and Advising Research grant. Funder had no role in study design, implementation, analysis, and manuscript preparation.
Competing interests AP serves as the patient editor of research and evaluation at the BMJ.
Patient and public involvement Patients and/or the public were involved in the design, or conduct, or reporting or dissemination plans of this research. Refer to the Methods section for further details.
Patient consent for publication Not required.
Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.
Data availability statement No data are available for this research.