Using Patient Experiences Surveys in Health Plan and Practice Evaluati

On September 19, 2009, Sarah Hudson Scholle made this presentation at the 2009 Annual Conference. Select to access the PowerPoint® presentation (626 KB) (Plugin Software Help).

Slide 1

Using Patient Experiences Surveys in Health Plan and Practice Evaluation
Sarah Hudson Scholle
Assistant Vice President, Research

Slide 2

Agenda

• NCQA
• Health plan accreditation model and CAHPS
• Incorporating patient experiences surveys into evaluation of physician practices

Slide 3

NCQA: A Brief Introduction

• Private, independent non-profit
  health care quality oversight organization founded in 1990
• Committed to measurement,
  transparency and accountability
• Unites diverse groups around common goal: improving health care quality

Slide 4

NCQA Health Plan Accreditation

• Key Components
  • Rigorous on-site review of key systems and processes
  • Evaluation of clinical performance through HEDIS® measures
  • Member experience surveys - CAHPS® 4.0H for adults and children

Slide 5

NCQA ACCREDITATION: BASED ON PERFORMANCE

Clinical Performance(HEDIS) + Member Experience (CAHPS) =43%
Health Plan Systems(Accreditation Standards) = 57%

Accreditation is Performance-based:NCQA Accreditation is the only health plan Accreditation that requires reporting on clinical performance
 

Slide 6

What is NCQA's HEDIS?

The Healthcare Effectiveness Data and Information Set:

• Process and outcomes measures
• Standardized member experience surveys
• Used by commercial, Medicare, and Medicaid plans alike
• Allows plan-to-plan comparisons by quality, not just by price

Slide 7

CAHPS® 4.0H Surveys Development and Reporting

• Quality Compass® (plan-to-plan comparisons)
• State of Health Care Quality Report
• National CAHPS Benchmarking Database (NCBD)
• Other products-report cards, Quality Dividend Calculator, etc.

Slide 8

NCQA Recognition Programs

• >14,000 Physicians Recognized nationality across all Recognition Programs
• Clinical ptograms
  • Diabetes recognition program(DRP)
  • Heart.Stroke recognition program(HSRP)
  • Back pain recognition program(BPRP)
• Medical practice process and structural measures
  • Physician practce connections
  • Physician practice connections-patient-centered medical home(PPC-PCMH)

Slide 9

Goals for Physician Practice Connections (PPC)

• Evaluate systematic approach to delivering preventive and chronic care (Wagner Chronic Care Model)
• Build on IOM's recommendation to shift from "blaming" individual clinicians to improving systems
• Create measures that are actionable for physician practices
• Validate measures by relating them to clinical performance and patient experience results

Slide 10

Theoretical Frameworks Informing Development of PPC-PCMH
Based on best available empiric evidence in each area and on testing of reliability and validity of elements in field tests using on site audit as "gold" standard

PRIMARY CARE
First contact-comprehensive-continuous-coordinated
 

Slide 11

Adapting PPC for the Patient-Centered Medical Home

• New PPC-PCMH version released in January 2008
  • Aligned standards with Joint Principles
  • Incorporated critical attributes of PCMH
  • Defined foundational elements ("must pass" requirements)
• PPC-PCMH endorsed by ACP, AAFP, AAP, AOA, other specialties and PCPCC for use in demos

Endorsed by National Quality Forum Sept 2008 (as “Medical Home System Survey”)

Slide 12

PPC-PCMH Content and Scoring

**Must Pass Elements
 

Slide 13

Examples of Initiatives Using PPC-PCMH

• Multi-payer - Colorado, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island
• State-wide - Pennsylvania, Vermont, Maine
• Single payer - EmblemHealth, Humana
• Government - Medicare, New York City, Louisiana

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Significant PPC-PCMH Issues for Future

"Measures of Meaningful Use" inside
 

• How to further assess patient-centeredness, including patient survey results?
  • How to engage patients?
  • How to make name resonate positively?
• When should performance results be part of scoring?
• How to adapt to promote quality and cost gains across settings?
  • Primary care-subspecialty
  • Physician-hospital, other facilities
• How to streamline requirements, documentation?
  • For all practices
  • For practices renewing

Slide 15

Timeline, Evolution of PPC-PCMH

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Barriers to Incorporating
Patient Experiences Results

• Lack of agreement on core content
• Whether existing tools are able to detect change in performance
• The burden of conducting patient experiences surveys
• Conflicting priority of accountability versus quality improvement goals
• Structure/process versus outcome scoring

Slide 17

Aims of Proposed Research

• Identify a core set of survey items
• Explore feasibility of alternative sampling and other data collection strategies
• Examine the impact of alternative scoring approaches in blending results from the PPC-PCMH and patient experience surveys

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Getting to Core Set of Measures

• Identify possible domains/items
  • Access
  • Communication
  • Coordination
  • Shared decision-making
  • Self Management
  • Whole person orientation
• Ranking exercise involving broad stakeholder participation
• Review of psychometric properties
• Recommendations to PPC-PCMH review panel

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Getting to Standardized Data Collection

• Profiles of existing efforts to collect, analyze and report patient experiences survey results
  • Purpose of survey
  • Unit of Analysis
  • Sampling
  • Data collection
  • Analysis
  • Quality assurance
  • Tool
  • Cost/Finance
• Review of literature on impact of different methods
• Recommendations to PPC-PCMH review panel

Slide 20

Summary

• Patient's views are critical to evaluations of health care, both at health plan and physician level
• Standardized tools and methodology needed to allow fair, national comparisons
• Feasibility and relevance to key stakeholders must be addressed

Slide 21

• For more information:
• Sarah Hudson Scholle, MPH, DrPH
• Scholle@ncqa.org
• 202-955-1726
• wwwncqa.org