Ruth McDonald

What Patients Want From Primary Care Consultations: A Discrete Choice Experiment to Identify Patients’ Priorities

PURPOSE The consultation is fundamental to the delivery of primary care, but different ways of organizing consultations may lead to different patient experiences in terms of access, continuity, technical quality of care, and communication. Patients’ priorities for these different issues need to be understood, but the optimal methods for assessing priorities are unclear. This study used a discrete choice experiment to assess patients’ priorities. METHODS We surveyed patients from 6 family practices in England. The patients chose between primary care consultations differing in attributes such as ease of access (wait for an appointment), choice (flexibility of appointment times), continuity (physician’s knowledge of the patient), technical quality (thoroughness of physical examination), and multiple aspects of patient-centered care (interest in patient’s ideas, inquiry about patient’s social and emotional well-being, and involvement of patient in decision making). We used probit models to assess the relative priority patients placed on different attributes and to estimate how much they were willing to pay for them. RESULTS Analyses were based on responses from 1,193 patients (a 53% response rate). Overall, patients were willing to pay the most for a thorough physical examination (

Impact of financial incentives on clinical autonomy and internal motivation in primary care: ethnographic study.

40.87). The next most valued attributes of care were seeing a physician who knew them well (

Reduced Mortality with Hospital Pay for Performance in England

12.18), seeing a physician with a friendly manner (

Pay for Performance in Primary Care in England and California: Comparison of Unintended Consequences

8.50), having a reduction in waiting time of 1 day (

The Experience of Pay for Performance in English Family Practice: A Qualitative Study

7.22), and having flexibility of appointment times (

What benefits will choice bring to patients? Literature review and assessment of implications:

6.71). Patients placed similar value on the different aspects of patient-centered care (

Rules and guidelines in clinical practice: a qualitative study in operating theatres of doctors’ and nurses’ views

12.06–

What are the key attributes of primary care for patients? Building a conceptual ‘map’ of patient preferences

14.82). Responses were influenced by the scenario in which the decision was made (minor physical problem vs urgent physical problem vs ambiguous physical or psychological problem) and by patients’ demographic characteristics. CONCLUSIONS Although patient-centered care is important to patients, they may place higher priority on the technical quality of care and continuity of care. Discrete choice experiments may be a useful method for assessing patients’ priorities in health care.

Long-Term Effect of Hospital Pay for Performance on Mortality in England

Objective To explore the impact of financial incentives for quality of care on practice organisation, clinical autonomy, and internal motivation of doctors and nurses working in primary care. Design Ethnographic case study. Setting Two English general practices. Participants 12 general practitioners, nine nurses, four healthcare assistants, and four administrative staff. Main outcome measure Observation of practices over a five month period after the introduction of financial incentives for quality of care introduced in the 2004 general practitioner contract. Results After the introduction of the quality and outcomes framework there was an increase in the use of templates to collect data on quality of care. New regimens of surveillance were adopted, with clinicians seen as “chasers” or the “chased,” depending on their individual responsibility for delivering quality targets. Attitudes towards the contract were largely positive, although discontent was higher in the practice with a more intensive surveillance regimen. Nurses expressed more concern than doctors about changes to their clinical practice but also appreciated being given responsibility for delivering on targets in particular disease areas. Most doctors did not question the quality targets that existed at the time or the implications of the targets for their own clinical autonomy. Conclusions Implementation of financial incentives for quality of care did not seem to have damaged the internal motivation of the general practitioners studied, although more concern was expressed by nurses.

Paying for the wrong kind of performance? Financial incentives and behaviour changes in National Health Service dentistry 1992–2009

BACKGROUND Pay-for-performance programs are being adopted internationally despite little evidence that they improve patient outcomes. In 2008, a program called Advancing Quality, based on the Hospital Quality Incentive Demonstration in the United States, was introduced in all National Health Service (NHS) hospitals in the northwest region of England (population, 6.8 million). METHODS We analyzed 30-day in-hospital mortality among 134,435 patients admitted for pneumonia, heart failure, or acute myocardial infarction to 24 hospitals covered by the pay-for-performance program. We used difference-in-differences regression analysis to compare mortality 18 months before and 18 months after the introduction of the program with mortality in two comparators: 722,139 patients admitted for the same three conditions to the 132 other hospitals in England and 241,009 patients admitted for six other conditions to both groups of hospitals. RESULTS Risk-adjusted, absolute mortality for the conditions included in the pay-for-performance program decreased significantly, with an absolute reduction of 1.3 percentage points (95% confidence interval [CI], 0.4 to 2.1; P=0.006) and a relative reduction of 6%, equivalent to 890 fewer deaths (95% CI, 260 to 1500) during the 18-month period. The largest reduction, for pneumonia, was significant (1.9 percentage points; 95% CI, 0.9 to 3.0; P<0.001), with nonsignificant reductions for acute myocardial infarction (0.6 percentage points; 95% CI, -0.4 to 1.7; P=0.23) and heart failure (0.6 percentage points; 95% CI, -0.6 to 1.8; P=0.30). CONCLUSIONS The introduction of pay for performance in all NHS hospitals in one region of England was associated with a clinically significant reduction in mortality. As compared with a similar U.S. program, the U.K. program had larger bonuses and a greater investment by hospitals in quality-improvement activities. Further research is needed on how implementation of pay-for-performance programs influences their effects. (Funded by the NHS National Institute for Health Research.).