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Healthcare quality is not only about how expertly doctors treat injuries and manage illnesses. It also is about the personal experiences of patients, beginning with the first phone call to make an appointment and everything that follows.
Measuring and reporting on patient experience has been MHQP’s core work for most of our history. Our signature program is the only statewide patient experience survey of primary care patients in Massachusetts, which asks patients about their experiences with their own doctor or their child’s doctor, as well as other staff in those doctors’ offices, across nine performance categories. In 2019, we also added to our portfolio a patient experience survey of Medicaid recipients in partnership with MassHealth.
Here is a list of the posts on this site related to MHQP’s patient experience activities:
MHQP Surveying MassHealth Members About Their Patient Experiences of Care
(May 2023)
MHQP is pleased to announce that we have again been selected by the Executive Office of Health and Human Services (EOHHS) for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts as its vendor to survey members of MassHealth, the state’s Medicaid program, about their experiences of care. MHQP completed a five-year contract for
MHQP Receives BCBSMA Foundation Grant to Explore Asian Patient Experiences
(March 2023)
Through a Special Initiatives grant from the Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts Foundation (BCBSMAF), MHQP has launched a new project designed to help better understand why Asian patients report worse experiences with primary care than other racial populations. A deeper understanding requires a more nuanced consideration of the
Winners of MHQP’s 2022 Patient Experience Awards Provide Best-In-Class Experiences Despite Growing Challenges for Primary Care
(February 2023)
Primary care practices are facing unprecedented challenges in the wake of the pandemic due to staffing shortages, inadequate reimbursement policies, changing patterns of well visits, practice consolidation, increased competition from new sources, and many other factors. Despite these challenges, the winners of the 2022 MHQP “Patient Experience Awards” found a
Black, Hispanic and Asian Patients Report Worse Patient Experiences than White Patients in Massachusetts
(February 2023)
MHQP Convening Stakeholders to Explore Drivers of These Disparities and How to Reduce Them
Black, Asian and Hispanic patients report worse experiences than White, non-Hispanic patients in Massachusetts. This is the key finding of an analysis of data collected in MHQP’s annual statewide Patient Experience Survey of commercially-insured patients,
MHQP Welcomes Partners on Statewide Initiative to Measure Disparities in Patient Experience
(November 2022)
MHQP is excited to launch an initiative to measure racial and ethnic disparities in patient experiences across Massachusetts by utilizing the same instrument and methodology we have used to measure patient experience in the state since 2006.
Our aim is to broker consistency in health equity measurement throughout the state
The Need to Measure Patient Experience of Oral Health Care: A Call to Action
(November 2022)
MHQP’s Amy Stern, Andrew D’Amour, Jim Courtemanche, and Barbra Rabson have co-authored an important article in collaboration with Nadeem Karimbux, Dean of the Tufts School of Dental Medicine, and Dr. Mike John, Associate Professor at the Minnesota School of Dentistry. The article, which was recently published in
Stepping Out of Silos to Tackle Disparities
(September 2022)
Nearly 30 years ago, a Boston Globe Spotlight article highlighted “the worst hospitals” in Massachusetts based on high mortality rates. In the wake of that article, well before the measurement of healthcare quality was widely practiced and accepted, a forward-thinking group of healthcare, business and community leaders
Tackling Inequities in Pain Assessment and Management
(August 2022)
Historically marginalized communities are systematically undertreated for pain, and this issue disproportionately impacts Black women. While this fact is well established by research (1), we know very little about the specific barriers that Black women experience when they seek pain care.
To help identify opportunities to close this research gap
It’s Time to Better Understand and Address Disparities in Patient Experiences
By Barbra G. Rabson
(July 2022)
The pandemic has shown us that we are not doing enough to equally promote health for people of all races and ethnicities. Given that there are well-known and researched disparities across all aspects of care, it may not surprise you to learn that Black, Hispanic and Asian
MHQP Confirms Significant Drop-Off in Key Preventive Care Measures During the Pandemic
(May 2022) Alarming declines in cancer screening procedures, routine tests for patients with diabetes, and childhood immunizations recorded
Data released today by MHQP confirm what many providers and policymakers feared – that preventive care declined during the pandemic, especially for procedures that required patients to visit a clinical setting in person.