Dataset Information

Patient feedback for safety improvement in primary care: results from a feasibility study.

ABSTRACT:

Objectives

Patient involvement in safety improvement is a developing area of research. The aim of this study was to investigate the feasibility of a patient feedback on safety intervention in primary care. Specifically, the intervention acceptability, fidelity, implementation enablers and barriers, scalability, and process of systematically collecting safety data were examined.

Design, setting and participants

Mixed-methods feasibility trial with six purposively selected Australian primary care practices.

Intervention

The intervention comprised an iterative process with a cycle of measurement, learning, feedback, action planning and implementation period of 6?months.

Primary and secondary outcomes

Qualitative and quantitative data relating to feasibility measures (acceptability, fidelity, enablers, barriers, scalability and process of collecting safety data) were collected and analysed.

Results

A total of n=1750 patients provided feedback on safety. There was a statistically significant increase in mean patient safety scores indicating improved safety (4.30-4.37, p=0.002). Staff deemed the intervention acceptable, with minor recommendations for improvement. Intervention fidelity was high and implementation enablers were attributed to the intervention structure and framework, use of intuitive problem-solving approaches, and multidisciplinary team involvement. Practice-based safety interventions resulted in sustainable and measurable changes to systems for safety, such as increased access to care and improved patient information accuracy.

Conclusions

The findings indicate that this innovative patient feedback on safety intervention is feasible for scale-up to a larger effectiveness trial and further spread into policy and practice. This intervention complements existing safety improvement strategies and activities, and integrates into current patient feedback service requirements for Australian primary care. Further research is needed to examine the intervention effects on safety incident reduction.

SUBMITTER: Hernan AL

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7307531 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

ACCESS DATA

Publications

Patient feedback for safety improvement in primary care: results from a feasibility study.

Hernan Andrea L AL Giles Sally J SJ Beks Hannah H McNamara Kevin K Kloot Kate K Binder Marley J MJ Versace Vincent V

BMJ open 20200621 6

<h4>Objectives</h4>Patient involvement in safety improvement is a developing area of research. The aim of this study was to investigate the feasibility of a patient feedback on safety intervention in primary care. Specifically, the intervention acceptability, fidelity, implementation enablers and barriers, scalability, and process of systematically collecting safety data were examined.<h4>Design, setting and participants</h4>Mixed-methods feasibility trial with six purposively selected Australia ...[more]

PMID: 32565479

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Project description:IntroductionPatients are a valuable source of information about ways to prevent harm in healthcare, and can provide feedback about the factors that contribute to safety incidents. The Primary Care Patient Measure of Safety (PC PMOS) is a novel and validated tool that captures patient feedback on safety and can be used by primary care practice teams to identify and prevent safety incidents. The aim of this study is to assess the feasibility of PC PMOS as a tool for data-driven safety improvement and monitoring in Australian primary care.Methods and analysisFeasibility will be assessed using a mixed-methods approach to understand the enablers, barriers, acceptability, practicability, intervention fidelity and scalability of C PMOS as a tool for safety improvement across six primary care practices in the south-west region of Victoria. Patients over the age of 18 years attending their primary care practice will be invited to complete the PC PMOS when presenting for an appointment. Staff members at each practice will form a safety improvement team. Staff will then use the patient feedback to develop and implement specific safety interventions over a 6-month period. Data collection methods during the intervention period includes audio recordings of staff meetings, overt observations at training and education workshops, reflexive researcher insights, document collection and review. Data collection postintervention includes patient completion of the PC PMOS and semistructured interviews with staff. Triangulation and thematic analysis techniques will be employed to analyse the qualitative and content data. Analysis methods will use current evidence and models of healthcare culture, safety improvement and patient involvement in safety to inform the findings.Ethics and disseminationEthics approval was granted by Deakin University Human Ethics Advisory Group, Faculty of Health (HEAG-H 175_2017). Study results will be disseminated through local and international conferences and peer-reviewed publications.

Project description:BackgroundThe need to expand and better engage patients in primary care improvement persists.PurposeRecognizing a continuum of forms of engagement, this study focused on identifying lessons for optimizing patient partnerships, wherein engagement is characterized by shared decision-making and practice improvement codesign.MethodologyTwenty-three semistructured interviews with providers and patients involved in improvement efforts in seven U.S. primary care practices in the Academic Innovations Collaborative (AIC). The AIC aimed to implement primary care improvement, emphasizing patient engagement in the process. Data were analyzed thematically.ResultsSites varied in their achievement of patient partnerships, encountering material, technical, and sociocultural obstacles. Time was a challenge for all sites, as was engaging a diversity of patients. Technical training on improvement processes and shared learning "on the job" were important. External, organizational, and individual-level resources helped overcome sociocultural challenges: The AIC drove provider buy-in, a team-based improvement approach helped shift relationships from providers and recipients toward teammates, and individual qualities and behaviors that flattened hierarchies and strengthened interpersonal relationships further enhanced "teamness." A key factor influencing progress toward transformative partnerships was a strong shared learning journey, characterized by frequent interactions, proximity to improvement decision-making, and learning together from the "lived experience" of practice improvement. Teams came to value not only patients' knowledge but also changes wrought by working collaboratively over time.ConclusionEstablishing practice improvement partnerships remains challenging, but partnering with patients on improvement journeys offers distinctive gains for high-quality patient-centered care.Practice implicationsEngaging diverse patient partners requires significant disruption to organizational norms and routines, and the trend toward team-based primary care offers a fertile context for patient partnerships. Material, technical, and sociocultural resources should be evaluated not only for whether they overcome specific challenges but also for how they enhance the shared learning journey.

Project description:Engaging health care staff in new quality improvement programs is challenging.We developed 2 virtual patient (VP) avatars in the context of a clinic-level quality improvement program. We sought to determine differences in preferences for VPs and the perceived influence of interacting with the VP on clinical staff engagement with the quality improvement program.Using a participatory design approach, we developed an older male smoker VP and a younger female smoker VP. The older male smoker was described as a patient with cardiovascular disease and was ethnically ambiguous. The female patient was younger and was worried about the impact of smoking on her pregnancy. Clinical staff were allowed to choose the VP they preferred, and the more they engaged with the VP, the more likely the VP was to quit smoking and become healthier. We deployed the VP within the context of a quality improvement program designed to encourage clinical staff to refer their patients who smoke to a patient-centered Web-assisted tobacco intervention. To evaluate the VPs, we used quantitative analyses using multivariate models of provider and practice characteristics and VP characteristic preference and analyses of a brief survey of positive deviants (clinical staff in practices with high rates of encouraging patients to use the quit smoking innovation).A total of 146 clinical staff from 76 primary care practices interacted with the VPs. Clinic staff included medical providers (35/146, 24.0%), nurse professionals (19/146, 13.0%), primary care technicians (5/146, 3.4%), managerial staff (67/146, 45.9%), and receptionists (20/146, 13.7%). Medical staff were mostly male, and other roles were mostly female. Medical providers (OR 0.031; CI 0.003-0.281; P=.002) and younger staff (OR 0.411; CI 0.177-0.952; P=.038) were less likely to choose the younger, female VP when controlling for all other characteristics. VP preference did not influence online patient referrals by staff. In high-performing practices that referred 20 or more smokers to the ePortal (13/76), the majority of clinic staff were motivated by or liked the virtual patient (20/26, 77%).Medical providers are more likely motivated by VPs that are similar to their patient population, while nurses and other staff may prefer avatars that are more similar to them.

Project description:INTRODUCTION:Geriatric patients have a pronounced risk to suffer from postoperative complications. While effective risk-specific perioperative measures have been studied in controlled experimental settings, they are rarely found in routine healthcare. This study aims (1) to implement a multicomponent preoperative and intraoperative intervention, and investigate its feasibility, and (2) exploratorily assess the effectiveness of the intervention in routine healthcare. METHODS AND ANALYSIS:Feasibility and exploratory effectiveness of the intervention will be investigated in a monocentric, prospective, non-randomised, controlled trial. The intervention includes systematic information for patients and family about measures to prevent postoperative complications; preoperative screening for frailty, malnutrition, strength and mobility with nutrient supplementation and physical exercise (prehabilitation) as needed. Further components focus on potentially inadequate medication, patient blood-management and carbohydrate loading prior to surgery, retainment of orientation aids in the operating room and a geriatric anaesthesia concept. Data will successively be collected from control, implementation and intervention groups. Patients aged 65+ with impending surgery will be included. A sample size of 240, n=80 per group, is planned. Assessments will take place at inclusion and 2, 30 and 180 days after surgery. Mixed-methods analyses will be performed. Exploratory effectiveness will be assessed using mixed segmented regressions. The primary endpoint is functional status. Secondary endpoints include cognitive performance, health-related quality of life, length of inpatient stay and occurrence of postoperative complications. Feasibility will be assessed through semi-structured interviews with staff and patients and quantitative analyses of the data quality, focussing on practicability, acceptance, adoption and fidelity to protocol. ETHICS AND DISSEMINATION:The study will be carried out in accordance with the Helsinki Declaration and to principles of good scientific practice. The Ethics Committee of the Medical Association Hamburg, Germany, approved the protocol (study ID: PV5596). Results will be disseminated in scientific journals and healthcare conferences. TRIAL REGISTRATION NUMBER:ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier: NCT03325413.

Project description:BackgroundThe aim was to determine the feasibility of implementing a patient safety survey which measures patients' experiences of their own safety relating to a care transition. This included limited-efficacy testing, determining acceptability (to patients and staff), and investigating integration with existing systems and practices from the staff perspective.MethodsMixed methods study in 16 wards across four hospitals, from two English NHS Trusts and four clinical areas; cardiology, care of older people, orthopaedics, stroke. Limited-efficacy testing of a previously validated survey was conducted through collection of patient reports of safety experiences, and thematic comparison with staff safety incident reports. Patient acceptability was determined through analysis of survey response rates and semi-structured interviews. Staff acceptability and integration were investigated through analysis of survey distribution rates, semi-structured interviews and focus groups.ResultsPatients returned 366 valid surveys (16.4% response rate) from 2824 distributed surveys (25.1% distribution rate). Older age was a contributing factor to lower responses. Delays were the largest safety concern for patients. Staff incident report themes included five not present in the safety survey data (documentation, pressure ulcers, devices or equipment, staffing shortages, and patient actions). Patient interviews (n = 28) identified that providing feedback was acceptable, subject to certain conditions being met; cognitive-cultural (patient understanding and prioritisation of safety), structural-procedural (opportunities, means and ease of providing feedback without fear of reprisals), and learning and change (closure of the feedback loop). Staff (n = 21) valued patient feedback but barriers to collecting and using the feedback included resource limitations, staff turnover and reluctance to over-burden patients.ConclusionsPatients can provide meaningful feedback on their experiences and perceptions of safety in the context of care transitions. Providing this feedback was acceptable to some patients, subject to certain conditions being met. Safety experience feedback from patients was also acceptable to staff; quantitative data was perceived as useful to identify potential risks, and qualitative data informed types of changes required to improve care. However, patient feedback was not integrated into any quality improvement initiatives, suggesting there are still significant challenges to healthcare teams or organisations utilising patient feedback, particularly in relation to care transitions.

Dataset Information

Patient feedback for safety improvement in primary care: results from a feasibility study.

Objectives

Design, setting and participants

Intervention

Primary and secondary outcomes

Results

Conclusions

Publications

Patient feedback for safety improvement in primary care: results from a feasibility study.

Similar Datasets

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