Abstract
Background
Despite growing emphasis on public reporting of health care quality data, available data are often ignored.
Objective
To evaluate the usefulness of web-based physician-level data for patients choosing a new primary care physician (PCP).
Design
Patients seeking a new PCP (n = 2225) were invited to view web-based information including PCP credentials, personal characteristics, office location and hours, and patient experience scores. Patient experience scores included validated measures of interpersonal quality, appointment access, care coordination, health promotion, and patient recommendations of the PCP. After viewing the website, participants indicated their preferred PCP and completed a study questionnaire.
Results
Of the invited participants, 17% visited the website (n = 382). Patient experience scores were cited most frequently as important to physician choice (51%). Among these measures, patients’ highest priorities were interpersonal quality (37%) and patient recommendations of the PCP (41%). For patients citing these priorities, the odds of choosing a highly scored physician after viewing the data was nearly 10 times that of choosing such a physician by chance (odds ratio (OR) = 9.52 and 9.71, respectively).
Conclusions
Targeting patients known to be making a health care decision appears to promote the use of performance data. Patients particularly valued data concerning other patients’ experiences and, after viewing the data, made choices well-aligned with their priorities.
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Acknowledgements
This research was supported by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (Grant No. 050791) and the Pacific Business Group on Health. Salary support was also provided by grant T32-HS00060 from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality.
We gratefully acknowledge Dr. Michael Nelson and the Facey Medical Group for their support and participation in this research. We are also indebted to Dr. Andrew Maxfield, Dr. Margaret Gerteis, and BearingPoint, Inc. as invaluable resources in the design and analysis of this project. We also gratefully acknowledge Kara Cassidy, Angela Li, and their colleagues for their outstanding work in obtaining and managing the data.
This paper was presented at the Society of General Internal Medicine Annual Meeting in April, 2006 and the AcademyHealth Annual Research Meeting in June, 2006.
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Fanjiang, G., von Glahn, T., Chang, H. et al. Providing Patients Web-based Data to Inform Physician Choice: If You Build It, Will They Come?. J GEN INTERN MED 22, 1463–1466 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11606-007-0278-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11606-007-0278-1