• Clinical Quality
• Patient Experiences
• Practice Performance
• Q & A
• Helpful Resources
• Technical Appendix
• Disclaimer
• Acknowledgements
• Letters of Support

quality reports : Patient Experiences : Q & A

Quality Insights: 2009 Patient Experiences in Primary Care

Questions & Answers

About This Report, the Survey Process, and MHQP

About This Report

What is MHQP’s Quality Insights: Patient Experiences in Primary Care?

Quality Insights: Patient Experiences in Primary Care is a website with results from a statewide survey of patients in Massachusetts. MHQP collected survey data from almost 80,000 patients – asking patients about experiences with their or their child’s primary care doctors.

MHQP has been surveying patients about their health care experiences since 2005. It is the only independent organization in Massachusetts to collect and publicly report information about the patient experience. The current website includes results from the third and most recent survey done in the fall of 2009.

What is meant by the term “patient experience”?

“Patient experience” refers to all that happens to a patient. This can begin with a phone call to the doctor’s office. It includes the whole time a patient is at the doctor’s office and any follow-up contact that happens after.

MHQP asks patients about aspects of care they know best about, such as:

• How well doctors communicate. This includes whether doctors listen to patients and clearly explain what patients need to do.
• How well doctors know their patients. This includes whether a doctor is aware of the patient's medical history and the patient’s beliefs and values in regard to health and illness.
• How well doctors give preventive care and advice. This includes whether doctors offer immunizations (shots) to prevent certain diseases as well as tests to screen (check) for cancer and other health problems. It also includes whether doctors talk with patients about ways to stay healthy such as being active and eating the right foods.
• How well doctors coordinate patient care. This includes whether doctors know about the care their patients get from specialists (health professionals who are expert in certain diseases or treatments) they refer the patient to and whether they follow-up with needed tests or treatments, and inform patients about test results.
• How quickly patients get appointments, care, and information. This includes how quickly office staff respond to patients’ phone calls and how soon patients can get appointments for routine or urgent care.
• How well other doctors, nurses, and health professionals give care at the doctor’s office. Doctors often work as a primary care team with other doctors, nurses, and health professionals. Patients may get care from any of these team members. This looks at how well team members listen, explain, and provide patient care.
• How helpful and polite office staff are. This includes the patient’s experience with the people who work at the front desk at your doctor's office.

Why is it important to learn about the patient experience?

Studies show that the patient experience is an important part of quality health care. Here are some ways that survey results can help:

• When patients have a good experience, they are more likely to follow their doctor’s medical advice.
• When patients have a bad experience, they may leave the doctor's office feeling angry or confused.
• Doctors should confirm that patients understand health information and check that they know how to care for themselves at home.
• Office staff may remind patients about needed tests, report test results more quickly, and make it easier to schedule office visits.

Sometimes a doctor's office receives a low score on one or more parts of the survey. This may not mean that there is poor quality health care. Instead, a low score can point out certain aspects of care that a doctor’s office needs to improve. MHQP expects future surveys to show progress in these areas.

How can I find survey results about my doctor's office?

This report looks only at doctors’ offices. It does not include results about any one doctor. To find information on a doctor’s office, visit the search page, Quality Reports: Patient Experience. You can search for a doctor’s office by:

• Your zip code
• Name of your doctor’s medical group
• Name of your doctor’s office
• Name of your doctor

To be in this report, an office must have at least 3 doctors. The office also must have received enough patient survey responses for results to be accurate (statistically reliable). Here are some reasons your doctor’s office might not be in this report:

• This report does not include information about doctors who practice alone, practice with just one other doctor, or do not have enough survey responses from their patients.
• This report is based on where doctors were working as of May 15, 2009. Patient experience results may change as doctors and other staff members leave or join the practice.

How can I use information from this survey?

MHQP asked many patients and family members how they plan to use survey results: Here are some of their answers:

• To find out how their doctor's office compares to others in the state.
• To choose a new primary care doctor for themselves or their family.
• To teach others how to learn about a doctor's office or choose a new doctor.
• To talk with doctors about their experiences. Doctors know about this survey and should be prepared to discuss the results.

About the Survey Process

How does MHQP collect information about the patient experience?

MHQP works closely with health plans and physician organizations to collect information about the patient experience. They send surveys to patients (“adult primary care survey”) and parents of patients (“pediatric primary care survey”) who have appointments with a primary care doctor during the year.

• Surveys are sent to patients by mail. Patients may complete the paper copy or fill it out online.
• Patients return their completed surveys to MHQP. Answers from each patient are kept confidential (private).
• MHQP reports survey results to the doctors and also posts results on the public website, www.mhqp.org.

You can learn more about this survey and how MHQP collects and reports data by going to the Technical Appendix.

How does MHQP decide which survey questions to ask?

• MHQP has been working with a team of health care survey experts for the past 15 years. Together, they choose questions that are important to patients as well as important to health care quality. All questions are tested to make sure that they are clear and easy for patients to understand.
• MHQP feels confident that this survey report fairly reflects patient’s experiences. It uses well-established methods to make sure that the results are reliable and can be trusted. Research shows that patients who are pleased with their care are just as likely to respond to surveys as those who are not pleased with care.

How is this survey funded? What groups work with MHQP on this report?

MHQP received most of the funding for this survey from its five member health plans: Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts, Fallon Community Health Plan, Harvard Pilgrim Health Care, Health New England, and Tufts Health Plan.

MHQP creates this report with help from many outside groups (not just member health plans). These groups include MHQP's Physician Council, the Massachusetts Medical Society, nursing professionals and physician assistants, patient/consumer focus groups, and medical/academic research organizations.

About MHQP (Massachusetts Health Quality Partners)

MHQP is a coalition of doctors, hospitals, health plans, purchasers, consumers, and government agencies – all working together to help improve the quality of health care in Massachusetts.

Health care leaders across Massachusetts founded MHQP in 1995. Its goal then, as now, is to help guide quality improvement by creating and reporting valid and comparable health care performance information. Today, MHQP provides reliable data that doctors can use to improve the quality of patient care and consumers can use to make informed health care choices.

MHQP member organizations include Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts, Fallon Community Health Plan, Harvard Pilgrim Health Care, Health New England, Neighborhood Health Plan, and Tufts Health Plan, Massachusetts Hospital Association, Massachusetts Medical Society, Massachusetts Executive Office of Health and Human Services, MHQP Physician Council, two consumer representatives, one employer representative, one academic representative and two independent health industry representatives.

The MHQP Physician Council includes medical directors from 14 large doctor organizations, including Baycare Health Partners; Beth Israel Deaconess Physician Organization; Caritas Christi Health Care System; Boston Medical Center; Fallon Clinic; Harvard Vanguard Medical Associates/Atrius Health; Lahey Clinic; Mt. Auburn Cambridge IPA; New England Quality Care Alliance, Partners Community Healthcare, Inc.; Pediatric Physicians Organization of Children's Hospital Medical Center; Southcoast Physicians Network; South Shore PHO; and UMass Memorial Health Care.

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