and do not necessarily provide a com- prehensive view of patients’ experiences. “That’s a constrained way to look at
what really matters, which is how pa- tients perceive their care and the sys- tems of care across all of their needs,” he said, adding that over time, patients could get what he describes as “survey fatigue.” Nor are such surveys meant to be a technical measure of quality, that is, evidence-based care, Dr. Walters says. Rather, they measure what he calls the “softer side” of the health care experi- ence, which is still an important com- ponent of a comprehensive quality mea- surement strategy.
“I understand patients don’t know as much about medicine as we [physi- cians] do, but this has little to do with medicine. It’s very simple: Patients want to know what’s wrong with them and what’s being done to help them; they want an ounce of care from those deliv- ering it and to leave in better shape than when they arrived. And CAHPS does measure a lot of those things,” he said. “Some things may seem trivial to us, but they are not trivial to our patients. And we have to remember that patient expe- rience has a lot of other things attached to it.”
the effectiveness, risks, and benefits of different treatment options for various health conditions such as type 2 diabe- tes, cardiovascular disease, obesity, preg- nancy, and mental health, among others. AHRQ is the only agency federally mandated to conduct comparative-ef- fectiveness research, which it defines as a way to inform health care decisions by providing evidence on the effectiveness, benefits, and harms of different treat- ment options. The evidence comes from research studies that compare drugs, medical devices, tests, surgeries, or other health care interventions. AHRQ approached TMA as a poten- tial partner to help share EHC Program information with physicians in their various practice settings with the goal of translating evidence-based findings into clinical practice. Patients also look directly to their health care professionals to get information about their treatment options. AHRQ says comparative-effec-
tiveness research is valuable because it reviews available treatment options and presents them in an unbiased manner. Like Choosing Wisely (www.texmed
.org/choosingwisely), the EHC Program is part of a growing national effort to empower consumers with — and inform health care professionals about — reli- able tools to make shared and informed health care decisions. At press time, TMA’s Council on Health Care Quality planned to discuss the EHC Program at the association’s winter conference in January. Read more about it at www.ef
fectivehealthcare.ahrq.gov. Choosing Wisely encourages physi- cians and patients to discuss the appro- priateness of medical tests and proce- dures that may be unnecessary or even harmful. n
Amy Lynn Sorrel is associate editor of Texas Medicine. You can reach her by telephone at (800) 880-1300, ext. 1392, or (512) 370-1392; by fax at (512) 370-1629; or by email at
amy.sorrel@
texmed.org.
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TMA examines Effective Health Care Program
The Texas Medical Association Council on Health Care Quality is looking into whether the Agency for Healthcare Re- search and Quality’s (AHRQ’s) Effective Health Care (EHC) Program could serve as a practical tool to help physicians and patients work together to make more in- formed health care decisions. AHRQ representatives presented the
EHC Program to the TMA council in December. To promote shared decision- making, it offers a series of free compar- ative-effectiveness tools, which include patient decision aids and research sum- maries for clinicians and consumers on
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March 2014 TEXAS MEDICINE 53
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