2. “Results and analysis of
patient feedback needs
to be made available to
all stakeholders in as
near ‘real time’ as
possible”
Robert Francis
Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation
Trust Inquiry 2013
3. Why measure patient experience?
Patients who have a positive experience of healthcare are
• more likely to trust their clinicians (Keating et al 2002)
• more likely to follow treatment recommendations
(Haynes et al 2008)
• less likely to die following a major clinical event
(Glickman et al 2010).
4. Why is it important to regulators?
• Understand current problems in care delivery
• Quickly spot trends and identify major risks to
the quality and safety
• Smoke detector of patient safety and quality
of care
5. Traditional measures of patient experience
• ask limited questions (Loeb 2004)
• conducted infrequently (Reeves and
Seccombe 2008)
• expensive to administer (Health Foundation
2013)
6. • Liking
• Following
• Linking
• Tagging
• Stumbling
Social media is
changing the nature
of health related
interactions
7. Capturing patient experience through
social media
• 44% of patients are likely to share health experiences
via social media (PWC 2012)
• Facebook “Likes” have a strong negative association
with 30-day mortality rates (Timian et al 2013)
• an early warning of poor clinical care for regulators
(Greaves et al 2013)
8. Research Question
How can healthcare regulators use patient
experience captured through social media to
detect poor performance and identify areas for
improvement?
9. Sub-Questions
•What systems are currently used by healthcare regulators to capture
realtime patient feedback?
•What are the enablers and barriers to using patient feedback captured
through social media?
•What are the views and opinions of patients, clinicians and regulators on this
type of data capture?
•Could this type of information provide an early warning of quality and safety
issues?
10. Methodology
Stage 1:
A mixed methods exploratory study to elicit perceptions, attitudes,
understanding and motivation of healthcare regulators in the use of social
media analysis to capture realtime patient experience of healthcare.
• Online survey of healthcare regulators in UK, EU and USA
• Semi-structured key informant interviews and focus group discussion with
healthcare stakeholders
• Focus group session with Healthcare Improvement Scotland Public Partner
Group to explore their views on use of patients’ social media comments to
inform healthcare regulators.
11. Methodology
Stage 2:
Pilot a small scale test, using sentiment analysis tools, to assess
• the feasibility of capturing realtime patient experience from
social networking sites
• the relevance and utility of this information in supporting the
safety and quality of healthcare
• the effectiveness of this analysis in identifying the textual
signals and separating out the signal from the noise
Thanks for the opportunity to share my early research thoughtsWhat I plan to do over the next 10 minutes or so is Briefly explain the background and rationale for the study - why its important to healthcare regulators - what are the limitations of existing systems - what role might social media play in the future Outline the research question and a summary of the planned methodology I have one or two queries that I’d like to pose to the group at the end of the presentation - value your input and adviceLeave plenty time for any questions or queries at the end
So there is no doubt 2013 was an Annushorribilis for the National Health Service in the UKArray of high profile publications about the quality and safety of healthcareHeightened public awareness, and strong media spotlight. Julie Baillie and fellow campaigners following publication of the report into Mid Staffordshire NHS TrustRecurring theme in all of these publications - failure to listen to patients and an inability to act promptly on their feedback to improve care.Refer to text on slide here
So why measure the patient’s experience of healthcare?I would argue thatmeasuring the quality of care through the patients’ eyes is crucialThe timely measurement, interpretation and analysis of the experiences of patients and families is essential to understanding of what’s working well what needs to be improved AND how we might go about it.Research shows that - refer to slide text hereA systematic review of evidence by Doyle et al (2013) indicates consistent positive associations between patient experience, patient safety and clinical effectiveness for a wide range of disease areas, settings, outcome measures and study designs.
So why is patient experience important to regulators?Traditionally regulators have used quantitative process measures and clinical outcome data to assess performance of healthcare organisations. Experiences of patients and carers has been a missing component in our scrutiny activity.Patient experience helps regulators - refer to slide text hereAs regulators we must bring together both quantitative and qualitative evidence into a coherent statement of the quality of patient care and experience.
So what’s the problem with the existing systems?Refer to slide text here Example of the Scottish National Patient Experience Survey which is only conduced once every two years – hardly realtime! It costs in excess of £2 million to run
Social media is changing the nature of health related interactionsMore than just a tool - its a conversation and one that healthcare organisations need to join.Patients and carers are using Twitter, Facebook, Blogs and Ratings Sites to instantly comment on cleanliness, communication, safety and quality of their care episodeThis is a largely untapped resource that holds great potentialEmphasize that this information can’t be used in isolation but could form a valuable part of the intelligence monitoring and analysis used by regulators
Patient stories permeate the atmosphereSocial media is viewed by many as the new frontier for communication between providers and patients. And this is a new and evolving area of researchRefer to text in slide here
Plan to adopt a sequential mixed methods approachAt this stage I’ve broken down the methodology into 2 distinct stages.Refer to text in slide here
This is where I might be getting a little over ambitious!The manager in me wants to go beyond the phase 1 research and do some feasibility testing of this type of information capture and analysis.Would be of great benefit to my own organisation as well as healthcare regulators throughout the UK and Europe.This would be on a small scale – possibly looking at 3 or 4 health boards
Scope - Have I bitten off more than I can chew? Stick to phase 1 ?I think that the phase 1 might be sufficient for the doctorate. The pilot of sentiment analysis could be a step too far. Perhaps there could be a case study of what CQC are doing or a more detailed look at how this realtime social media feedback is used by service industries to improve customer care.Methodology - Exploratory Mixed Methods or Action Research – I want to do more than just understand the views I would like to generate solutionsEthics - social media research is an emerging field. Retaining the privacy and anonymity of social media usersPatients haven’t consented for their unsolicited comments to be collated, analysed and published, in effect turning them into research subjects