Feasibility of using emergency department patient experience surveys as a proxy for equity of care

Abstract

Eric (2014) "Feasibility of using emergency department patient experience surveys as a proxy for equity of care," AbstractCollecting and examining equity data can help inform quality improvement initiatives but is a relatively new practice in health care. The overall goal of this study was to assess different methods a feasible starting point in measuring equity in an urban Emergency Department (ED) that serves a diverse patient population. Socio-demographic characteristics of patients visiting an ED were compared with tho responded to provincial patient experience surveys routinely administered by mail. Patient experience survey data were collected over an 11-week period in an urban ED using different survey administration methods (face vs. handout) among study participants from vulnerable populations (elderly, low income, homeless, and mental health or substance use issues). Patient populations receiving care in the ED were shown to be different from those who responded to routinely mailed patient experience surveys with elderly patients over income, mental health or substance use and homeless/unstable housing populations under responses. From a total of 111 study participants, the r for surveys that were handed out (p = 0.002), but no significant difference in the percentage of positive responses was evident. Delivering patient experience surveys immediately upon discharge is an effective way of capturing uni responses from patients in vulnerable populations, supporting a valuable means administration method poses important implications when used to inform quality improvement efforts and performance measurement.

Through An Equity Lens: Illuminating The Relationships Among Social Inequities, Stigma And Discrimination, And Patient Experiences of Emergency Health Care

“…Thus, health and health care inequities are exacerbated by the gaps in care provided at EDs. However, larger scale efforts to measure and monitor patient experiences of care (PEOC) in EDs rarely disaggregate by social circumstances and seldom capture experiences that reflect structural inequities, including barriers to care, experiences of discrimination, or the relationships among these variables, thus providing limited direction to mitigate inequities 17 .…”

Measuring patient experience in the emergency department: A scoping review

“…The results of the scoping review indicated that measuring patients' experience in the ED is a global concern, with 2 papers originating from The Netherlands [ 21 , 22 ], United Kingdom and the Netherlands (1) [ 23 ], Australia (1) [ 24 ], Iran (3) [ [25] , [26] , [27] ], Canada (2) [ 4 , 28 ] and United States of America (1) [ 29 ].…”

“…The sample sizes in these studies ranged from 103 to 128,350, with most studies collecting data in state urban and rural hospitals. One study focused on a vulnerable population consisting of elderly, mentally ill and homeless patients [ 28 ]. Regarding the mode of tool administration in 5 studies, the participants took part in face-to-face questionnaires while still in the hospital or in their homes 7–10 days after discharge.…”

“…When scoring the tool, authors added up all the individual items and then classified the total experience score as low, moderate and high. Only 3 tools obtained responses through some open-ended questions [ 24 , 25 , 28 ].…”

“…Researchers ensured that most of the developed tools were tested using a pilot study [ [21] , [22] , [23] , [24] ], however for 2 of the tools, validity or reliability were not reported [ 4 , 28 ]. Four of the questionnaires were mailed to ED patients after being recruited anonymously, to minimise biases [ 30 ].…”