RESUMO
BACKGROUND: The evidence that sharing mass care quality data with health service users improves care is weak. AIMS: We hypothesised that providing patients with individualised care quality data would drive improvements to the care received by those patients. METHODS: Together with patients who had chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), we co-designed a quality score card mapping indicators derived from National Institute for Clinical Excellence (NICE) quality standards against matched data taken from their general practice clinical records. All 640 COPD patients from 10 practices had improvements in these indicators before and 3 months after the intervention compared with 595 COPD patients in 10 control practices. RESULTS: Significant improvements in referral to pulmonary rehabilitation (P=0.03) and confirmation of diagnosis with spirometry (P=0.001) were seen in the intervention compared with the control practice population (P<0.001). Increases in the provision of self-management plans were seen in both the groups. No improvement was seen in other indicators. CONCLUSIONS: Although the study is not able to prove a direct cause and effect, there is sufficient evidence presented to warrant the larger-scale evaluation of co-designed, personalised, quality score cards for COPD patients used as a tool to enhance care quality.
Assuntos
Doença Pulmonar Obstrutiva Crônica/terapia , Indicadores de Qualidade em Assistência à Saúde , Adulto , Comportamentos Relacionados com a Saúde , Humanos , Cooperação do Paciente , Indicadores de Qualidade em Assistência à Saúde/organização & administração , Indicadores de Qualidade em Assistência à Saúde/normas , AutocuidadoRESUMO
BACKGROUND: A growing body of knowledge exists to guide efforts to improve the organisation and delivery of health care, most of which is based on work carried out in hospitals. It is uncertain how transferable this knowledge is to primary care. AIM: To understand the enablers and constraints to implementing a large-scale quality improvement programme in general practice, designed to improve care for people with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. DESIGN AND SETTING: A qualitative study of 189 general practices in a socioeconomically and ethnically-mixed, urban area in east London, UK. METHOD: Twelve semi-structured interviews were conducted with people leading the programme and 17 in-depth interviews with those participating in it. Participants were local health system leaders, clinicians, and managers. A theoretical framework derived from evidence-based guidance for improvement programmes was used to interpret the findings. A complex improvement intervention took place with social and technical elements including training and mentorship, guidance, analytical tools, and data feedback. RESULTS: Practice staff wanted to participate in and learn from well-designed collaborative improvement projects. Nevertheless, there were limitations in the capacities and capabilities of the workforce to undertake systematic improvement, significant problems with access to and the quality of data, and tensions between the narrative-based generalist orientation of many primary care clinicians and the quantitative single-disease orientation that has characterised much of the quality improvement movement to date. CONCLUSION: Improvement guidance derived largely from hospital-based studies is, for the most part, applicable to improvement efforts in primary care settings, although large-scale change in general practice presents some particular challenges. These need to be better understood and addressed if improvement initiatives are to be effective.