Maine to deploy statewide patient experience survey
Maine is gearing up for a statewide survey of doctors that will measure patients’ experience of care and provide the state and its healthcare industry with important metrics. That upcoming survey was the focus of a session held during Maine Quality Counts’ daylong conference held Wednesday in the state’s capitol city.
Maine Quality Counts is a healthcare collaborative dedicated to improving the health and healthcare of the residents of the state. Its conference on Wednesday, “Partnering with Patients: Finding the Bright Spots to Transform Care,” was held in partnership with a number of state organizations, including the Maine Primary Care Association and the Maine Public Health Association.
The details of the state’s survey of its doctors are being worked out now, said Alexander Dragatsi, the Maine Quality Forum coordinator of the Dirigo Health Agency (DHA), but the state plans on using the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality’s Clinician and Group Assessment of Healthcare Providers Survey (CG-CAHPS).
The state is conducting the survey because the Maine Quality Forum is directed by law to evaluate and compare healthcare quality and provider performance, Dragatsi told the audience.
Participation is voluntary and physician practices will be expected to pay the costs of deploying the survey, although DHA will be offering a subsidy to participating practices.
DHA has committed funds to subsidize up to 500 practice sites, which would cover the majority of primary care practices in the state, Dragatsi said. The agency estimates its subsidy will cover 60 to 90 percent of the survey costs. So, for example, a practice with four to nine providers would pay an estimated $210 out-of-pocket and DHA would pick up $1,890.
The survey will explore patient experience rather than patient satisfaction, Dragasti stressed. Patient experience surveys focus on eliciting recollections from the patient about specific aspects of their visit to their doctor’s office, such as how long they had to wait, and asks fewer questions about patients’ opinions.
[See also: Patient experience a top priority for hospital executives.]
“Surveying patients, to start with, is a very good engagement process,” Dragasti said. “It allows the patient to be engaged in their care. It places the patient at the center of their healthcare encounter. It reemphasizes the focus and redirects the focus of the provider to that center.”
The results of the survey will be publicly reported and the state expects those results to create quality indicators and a basis for quality standards.
The survey should be deployed from September through November of this year with public reporting of the results tentatively scheduled for the summer of 2013.
Follow HFN associate editor Stephanie Bouchard on Twitter @SBouchardHFN.
