Research conducted by The Joint Commission suggests consumers can effectively understand publicly reported data on hospital performance and quality, despite previous research that concluded otherwise.
Researchers created 24 prototype reports using data from the federal government's Hospital Compare and The Joint Commission's Quality Check databases, both of which allow consumers to navigate different healthcare providers' performance on quality and patient safety metrics. The researchers also convened seven focus groups to assess how they interpreted the prototype reports. The research participants were asked to analyze the reports and complete questionnaires about the data. The researchers aggregated the study participants' feedback and found the following:
• Participants and no trouble interpreting the N/D (no data) symbol and understood they could not create an opinion about a healthcare provider based on that lack of information.
• Participants general understood graphs that portrayed whether a hospital met, did not meet or exceeded target expectations for a process of care measure.
• Summary charts seemed to be more useful to participants than overly detailed data, which can cause confusion.
The researchers also found several factors could increase the risk of confusion or misinterpretation of hospital quality data, including the combination of symbol-based data that indicated no statistical differences among organizations and numerical data that presented differences in sample size and actual percentages.
View The Joint Commission study in full here.
Researchers created 24 prototype reports using data from the federal government's Hospital Compare and The Joint Commission's Quality Check databases, both of which allow consumers to navigate different healthcare providers' performance on quality and patient safety metrics. The researchers also convened seven focus groups to assess how they interpreted the prototype reports. The research participants were asked to analyze the reports and complete questionnaires about the data. The researchers aggregated the study participants' feedback and found the following:
• Participants and no trouble interpreting the N/D (no data) symbol and understood they could not create an opinion about a healthcare provider based on that lack of information.
• Participants general understood graphs that portrayed whether a hospital met, did not meet or exceeded target expectations for a process of care measure.
• Summary charts seemed to be more useful to participants than overly detailed data, which can cause confusion.
The researchers also found several factors could increase the risk of confusion or misinterpretation of hospital quality data, including the combination of symbol-based data that indicated no statistical differences among organizations and numerical data that presented differences in sample size and actual percentages.
View The Joint Commission study in full here.
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