Leveraging the Wisdom of Crowds to Measure Healthcare Quality

Patient experience is recognized as a critical component of healthcare quality and experience is increasingly incorporated into quality assessments, reporting, and payments. However, the experience data used is typically limited to survey ratings. While this information is useful for benchmarking, it is limited in breadth and nuance. Conversely, rich patient experience data exists in online platforms like Yelp and Reddit, where patients share rich narratives on their experiences with providers and on living with chronic conditions. These narratives can be leveraged to expand our understanding of quality and our reporting of experience. This panel will present two studies. The first study uses online patient ratings and reviews of home healthcare providers to identify opportunities for expanding current reports of patient experience by incorporating patient-generated reviews into quality reports. The second study uses patient narratives from several online sources to identify themes in patient experience and what matters to patients for patients living with Rheumatoid Arthritis. Results suggest opportunities for new quality measurement domains tied to key themes in patient experience. Both studies demonstrate how rich patient narrative data can be incorporated into the existing quality measurement and reporting structure.

VIDEO:  Hear Dr. Jennifer Gaudet Hefele's insights on this session.