An exploration of how domains of quality of care relate to overall care experience

Abstract

Purpose: To determine the relative influence of the different domains of healthcare quality from the Care Experience Feedback Improvement Tool and identify key predictors of healthcare quality from the patients’ perspective. Measurement is necessary to determine whether quality of healthcare is improving. The Care Experience Feedback Improvement Tool was developed as a brief measure of patient experience. It is important to determine the relative influence of the different domains of healthcare quality to further clarify how the Care Experience Feedback Improvement Tool can be used and identify key predictors of healthcare quality from the patients’ perspective. Methods: 802 people with a healthcare experience during the previous 12 months were telephoned to complete the Care Experience Feedback Improvement Tool questions and an additional eleven-point global rating of patient experience. To estimate the influence of different domains of healthcare quality on patient overall ratings of quality of healthcare experience, we regressed the overall rating of patient experience with each component of quality (safety, effectiveness, timely, caring, enables system navigation and person-centred). Findings: We found that all of the domains of the Care Experience Feedback Improvement Tool, influenced patient experience ratings of healthcare quality. Specifically, results show the degree of influence, the impact of demographics and how high scores for overall rating of patient experience can be predicted. Originality: Our findings suggest that all of the Care Experience Feedback Improvement Tool domains are important in terms of capturing the wholeness of the patient experience of healthcare quality to direct local quality improvement.