Project description:ObjectiveTo understand disparities in primary care patient experience.DesignA serial cross-sectional study was conducted to understand disparities in patient experience at 2 time points (2014 and 2016). Disparities related to age, gender, neighbourhood income, and self-rated health were explored using 3 analytic approaches: stratification, logistic regression, and relative comparison across multiple demographic variables.SettingA multisite family health team in Toronto, Ont.ParticipantsPatients in the family medicine practice who completed e-mail surveys in 2014 (n = 1171, 19% response rate) and 2016 (n = 1823, 15% response rate).Main outcome measuresPatient-reported access (timely access when sick, access after hours) and patient-centredness (opportunity to ask questions, involvement in care decisions, enough time with provider).ResultsPerformance for all measures improved between 2014 and 2016, with the greatest absolute improvement seen in access after hours (61% in 2014; 75% in 2016). Patients residing in low-income neighbourhoods reported worse patient experiences than those in high-income neighbourhoods did, as did patients with poor versus excellent self-rated health, even after adjustment for other variables. For example, in 2016, 60% of patients residing in low-income neighbourhoods reported timely access when sick versus 70% in high-income neighbourhoods (adjusted odds ratio of 0.67, 95% CI 0.47 to 0.95); 60% of patients with poor or fair self-rated health reported timely access when sick versus 72% with excellent self-rated health (adjusted odds ratio of 0.54, 95% CI 0.35 to 0.84). Comparing across demographic groups, patients with excellent self-rated health and poor or fair self-rated health reported the best and worst experiences, respectively, for all measures. In 2016, the average disparity between subgroups was largest for access after hours.ConclusionIn this setting, patient experience was worse for patients in lower-income neighbourhoods and those with poor or fair self-rated health. Access after hours demonstrated the greatest overall absolute improvement but also the greatest widening of disparities.
Project description:ImportanceRacial disparities in treatment benchmarks have been documented among older patients with hip fractures. However, these studies were limited to patient-level evaluations.ObjectiveTo assess whether disparities in meeting fracture care time-to-surgery benchmarks exist at the patient level or at the hospital or institutional level using high-quality multicenter prospectively collected data; the study hypothesis was that disparities at the hospital-level reflecting structural health systems issues would be detected.Design, setting, and participantsThis cohort study was a secondary analysis of prospectively collected data in the PREP-IT (Program of Randomized trials to Evaluate Preoperative antiseptic skin solutions in orthopaedic Trauma) program from 23 sites throughout North America. The PREP-IT trials enrolled patients from 2018 to 2021, and patients were followed for 1-year. All patients with hip and femur fractures enrolled in the PREP-IT program were included in analysis. Data were analyzed April to September 2022.ExposuresPatient-level and hospital-level race, ethnicity, and insurance status.Main outcomes and measuresPrimary outcome measure was time to surgery based on 24-hour time-to-surgery benchmarks. Multilevel multivariate regression models were used to evaluate the association of race, ethnicity, and insurance status with time to surgery. The reported odds ratios (ORs) were per 10% change in insurance coverage or racial composition at the hospital level.ResultsA total of 2565 patients with a mean (SD) age of 64.5 (20.4) years (1129 [44.0%] men; mean [SD] body mass index, 27.3 [14.9]; 83 [3.2%] Asian, 343 [13.4%] Black, 2112 [82.3%] White, 28 [1.1%] other) were included in analysis. Of these patients, 834 (32.5%) were employed and 2367 (92.2%) had insurance; 1015 (39.6%) had sustained a femur fracture, with a mean (SD) injury severity score of 10.4 (5.8). Five hundred ninety-six patients (23.2%) did not meet the 24-hour time-to-operating-room benchmark. After controlling for patient-level characteristics, there was an independent association between missing the 24-hour benchmark and hospital population insurance coverage (OR, 0.94; 95% CI, 0.89-0.98; P = .005) and the interaction term between hospital population insurance coverage and racial composition (OR, 1.03; 95% CI, 1.01-1.05; P = .03). There was no association between patient race and delay beyond 24-hour benchmarks (OR, 0.96; 95% CI, 0.72-1.29; P = .79).Conclusions and relevanceIn this cohort study, patients who sought care from an institution with a greater proportion of patients with racial or ethnic minority status or who were uninsured were more likely to experience delays greater than the 24-hour benchmarks regardless of the individual patient race; institutions that treat a less diverse patient population appeared to be more resilient to the mix of insurance status in their patient population and were more likely to meet time-to-surgery benchmarks, regardless of patient insurance status or population-based insurance mix. While it is unsurprising that increased delays were associated with underfunded institutions, the association between institutional-level racial disparity and surgical delays implies structural health systems bias.
Project description:During acute stroke care, rehabilitation usage may be influenced by patient- and hospital-related factors. We would like to identify patient- and hospital-level determinants of population-level inpatient rehabilitation usage associated with acute stroke care.From data obtained from the claim information from the National Health Insurance Administration (NHIA) in Taiwan (2009-2011), we enrolled 82,886 stroke patients with intracerebral hemorrhage and cerebral infarction from 207 hospitals. A generalized linear mixed model (GLMM) analyses with patient-level factors specified as random effects were conducted (for cross-level interactions).The rate of rehabilitation usage was 51% during acute stroke care. The hospital-related factors accounted for a significant amount of variability (intraclass correlation, 50%). Hospital type was the only significant hospital-level variable and can explain the large amount of variability (58%). Patients treated in smaller hospitals experienced few benefits of rehabilitation services, and those with surgery in a smaller hospital used fewer rehabilitation services. All patient-level variables were significant.With GLMM analyses, we identified the hospital type and its cross-level interaction, and explained a large portion of variability in rehabilitation for stroke patients in Taiwan.
Project description:OBJECTIVE:Review approaches assessing magnitude of differences in patient experience scores between different providers. DATA SOURCES:1990-2016 literature. STUDY DESIGN:Systematic literature review. DATA EXTRACTION METHODS:Of 812 articles mentioning "CAHPS," "patient experience," "patient satisfaction," "important(ce)," "difference," or "significance," we identified 79 possible articles, yielding 35 for data abstraction. We included 22 articles measuring magnitude of differences in patient experiences. PRINCIPAL FINDINGS:We identified three main ways of estimating magnitude of differences in patient experience scores: (1) by distribution/range of patient experience variable, (2) against external anchor, and (3) comparing a difference in patient experience on one covariate to differences in patient experience on other covariates. CONCLUSIONS:We suggest routine estimation of magnitude in patient experience research. More work is needed documenting magnitude of differences between providers to make patient experience data more interpretable and usable.
Project description:Variation in the use of ICUs for low-risk conditions contributes to health system inefficiency. We sought to examine the relationship between ICU use for patients with pulmonary embolism (PE) and cost, mortality, readmission, and procedure use.We performed a retrospective cohort study including 61,249 adults with PE discharged from 263 hospitals in three states between 2007 and 2010. We generated hospital-specific ICU admission rate quartiles and used a series of multilevel models to evaluate relationships between admission rates and risk-adjusted in-hospital mortality, readmission, and costs and between ICU admission rates and several critical care procedures.Hospital quartiles varied in unadjusted ICU admission rates for PE (range, ≤ 15% to > 31%). Among all patients, there was a small trend toward increased use of arterial catheterization (0.6%-1.1%, P < .01) in hospital quartiles with higher levels of ICU admission. However, use of invasive mechanical ventilation (14.4%-7.9%, P < .01), noninvasive ventilation (6.6%-3.0%, P < .01), central venous catheterization (14.6%-11.3%, P < .02), and thrombolytics (11.0%-4.7%, P < .01) in patients in the ICU declined across hospital quartiles. There was no relationship between ICU admission rate and risk-adjusted hospital mortality, costs, or readmission.Hospitals vary widely in ICU admission rates for acute PE without a detectable impact on mortality, cost, or readmission. Patients admitted to ICUs in higher-using hospitals received many critical care procedures less often, suggesting that these patients may have had weaker indications for ICU admission. Hospitals with greater ICU admission may be appropriate targets for improving efficiency in ICU admissions.
Project description:ObjectiveTo compare two approaches to measuring racial/ethnic disparities in the use of high-quality hospitals.Data sourcesSimulated data.Study designThrough simulations, we compared the "minority-serving" approach of assessing differences in risk-adjusted outcomes at minority-serving and non-minority-serving hospitals with a "fixed-effect" approach that estimated the reduction in adverse outcomes if the distribution of minority and white patients across hospitals was the same. We evaluated each method's ability to detect and measure a disparity in outcomes caused by minority patients receiving care at poor-quality hospitals, which we label a "between-hospital" disparity, and to reject it when the disparity in outcomes was caused by factors other than hospital quality.Principal findingsThe minority-serving and fixed-effect approaches correctly identified between-hospital disparities in quality when they existed and rejected them when racial differences in outcomes were caused by other disparities; however, the fixed-effect approach has many advantages. It does not require an ad hoc definition of a minority-serving hospital, and it estimated the magnitude of the disparity accurately, while the minority-serving approach underestimated the disparity by 35-46 percent.ConclusionsResearchers should consider using the fixed-effect approach for measuring disparities in use of high-quality hospital care by vulnerable populations.
Project description:Veterans enrolled in the Veterans Affairs (VA) health care system gained greater access to non-VA care beginning in 2014. We examined hospital and Veteran characteristics associated with hospital choice. We conducted a longitudinal study of elective hospitalizations 2011 to 2017 in 11 states and modeled patients' choice of VA hospital, large non-VA hospital, or small non-VA hospital in conditional logit models. Patients had higher odds of choosing a hospital with an academic affiliation, better patient experience rating, location closer to them, and a more common hospital type. Patients who were male, racial/ethnic minorities, had higher VA enrollment priority, and had a mental health comorbidity were more likely than other patients to choose a VA hospital than a non-VA hospital. Our findings suggest that patients respond to certain hospital attributes. VA hospitals may need to maintain or achieve high levels of quality and patient experience to attract or retain patients in the future.
Project description:BackgroundContinuous monitoring of the vital signs of critical care patients is an essential component of critical care medicine. For this task, clinicians use a patient monitor (PM), which conveys patient vital sign data through a screen and an auditory alarm system. Some limitations with PMs have been identified in the literature, such as the need for visual contact with the PM screen, which could result in reduced focus on the patient in specific scenarios, and the amount of noise generated by the PM alarm system. With the advancement of material science and electronic technology, wearable devices have emerged as a potential solution for these problems. This review presents the findings of several studies that focused on the usability and human factors of wearable devices designed for use in critical care patient monitoring.ObjectiveThe aim of this study is to review the current state of the art in wearable devices intended for use by clinicians to monitor vital signs of critical care patients in hospital settings, with a focus on the usability and human factors of the devices.MethodsA comprehensive literature search of relevant databases was conducted, and 20 studies were identified and critically reviewed by the authors.ResultsWe identified 3 types of wearable devices: tactile, head-mounted, and smartwatch displays. In most cases, these devices were intended for use by anesthesiologists, but nurses and surgeons were also identified as potentially important users of wearable technology in critical care medicine. Although the studies investigating tactile displays revealed their potential to improve clinical monitoring, usability problems related to comfort need to be overcome before they can be considered suitable for use in clinical practice. Only a few studies investigated the usability and human factors of tactile displays by conducting user testing involving critical care professionals. The studies of head-mounted displays (HMDs) revealed that these devices could be useful in critical care medicine, particularly from an ergonomics point of view. By reducing the amount of time the user spends averting their gaze from the patient to a separate screen, HMDs enable clinicians to improve their patient focus and reduce the potential of repetitive strain injury.ConclusionsResearchers and designers of new wearable devices for use in critical care medicine should strive to achieve not only enhanced performance but also enhanced user experience for their users, especially in terms of comfort and ease of use. These aspects of wearable displays must be extensively tested with the intended end users in a setting that properly reflects the intended context of use before their adoption can be considered in clinical settings.
Project description:BACKGROUND:The patient monitor (PM) is one of the most commonly used medical devices in hospitals worldwide. PMs are used to monitor patients' vital signs in a wide variety of patient care settings, especially in critical care settings, such as intensive care units. An interesting observation is that the design of PMs has not significantly changed over the past 2 decades, with the layout and structure of PMs more or less unchanged, with incremental changes in design being made rather than transformational changes. Thus, we believe it well-timed to review the design of novel PM interfaces, with particular reference to usability and human factors. OBJECTIVE:This paper aims to review innovations in PM design proposed by researchers and explore how clinicians responded to these design changes. METHODS:A literature search of relevant databases, following the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses guidelines, identified 16 related studies. A detailed description of the interface design and an analysis of each novel PM were carried out, including a detailed analysis of the structure of the different user interfaces, to inform future PM design. The test methodologies used to evaluate the different designs are also presented. RESULTS:Most of the studies included in this review identified some level of improvement in the clinician's performance when using a novel display in comparison with the traditional PM. For instance, from the 16 reviewed studies, 12 studies identified an improvement in the detection and response times, and 10 studies identified an improvement in the accuracy or treatment efficiency. This indicates that novel displays have the potential to improve the clinical performance of nurses and doctors. However, the outcomes of some of these studies are weakened because of methodological deficiencies. These deficiencies are discussed in detail in this study. CONCLUSIONS:More careful study design is warranted to investigate the user experience and usability of future novel PMs for real time vital sign monitoring, to establish whether or not they could be used successfully in critical care. A series of recommendations on how future novel PM designs and evaluations can be enhanced are provided.
Project description:ObjectiveTo explore hospital-level care for pre-eclampsia in Ethiopia, considering the perspectives of those affected and healthcare providers, in order to understand barriers and facilitators to early detection, care escalation and appropriate management.SettingA primary and a general hospital in southern Ethiopia.ParticipantsWomen with lived experience of pre-eclampsia care in the hospital, families of women deceased due to pre-eclampsia, midwives, doctors, integrated emergency surgical officers and healthcare managers.ResultsThis study identified numerous systemic barriers to provision of quality, person-centred care for pre-eclampsia in hospitals. Individual staff efforts to respond to maternal emergencies were undermined by a lack of consistency in availability of resources and support. The ways in which policies were applied exacerbated inequities in care. Staff improvised as a means of managing with limited material or human resources and knowledge. Social hierarchies and punitive cultures challenged adequacy of communication with women, documentation of care given and supportive environments for quality improvement.ConclusionsQuality care for pre-eclampsia requires organisational change to create a safe space for learning and improvement, alongside efforts to offer patient-centred care and ensure providers are equipped with knowledge, resources and support to adhere to evidence-based practice.