TY - JOUR
T1 - Beyond satisfaction
T2 - Using the dynamics of care assessment to better understand patients' experiences in care
AU - Rapkin, Bruce
AU - Weiss, Elisa
AU - Chhabra, Rosy
AU - Ryniker, Laura
AU - Patel, Shilpa
AU - Carness, Jason
AU - Adsuar, Roberto
AU - Kahalas, Wendy
AU - DeLeMarter, Carol
AU - Feldman, Ira
AU - DeLorenzo, Judy
AU - Tanner, Ellen
N1 - Funding Information:
This publication was supported by grant number X07HA00025 from the U.S. Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA). This grant is funded through Title II of the Ryan White Comprehensive AIDS Resources Emergency Act of 1990, as amended by the Ryan White CARE Act Amendments of 2000. Its contents are solely the responsibility of Health Research, Inc. and do not necessarily represent the official view of the funders.
PY - 2008/3/10
Y1 - 2008/3/10
N2 - Background: Patient perceptions of and satisfaction with care have become important indicators of the quality of services and the relationship of services to treatment outcomes. However, assessment of these indicators continues to be plagued by measurement problems, particularly the lack of variance in satisfaction data. In this article, we present a new approach to better capture patient perceptions of experiences in care, the Dynamics of Care (DoC) assessment. It is an in-depth approach to defining and assessing patients' perspectives at different junctures in care, including their decisions about whether and where to seek care, the barriers encountered, and the treatments and services received. Methods: The purpose of this article is to describe, validate, and discuss the benefits and limitations of the DoC, which was administered as part of a longitudinal study to evaluate the New York State HIV Special Needs Plan (SNP), a Medicaid managed care model for people living with HIV/AIDS. Data are from 426 study respondents across two time points. Results: The results demonstrate the validity and value of the DoC. Help seeking decisions and satisfaction with care appear to be situation-specific, rather than person-specific. However, barriers to care appear to be more cross-situational for respondents, and may be associated with clients' living situations or care arrangements. Inventories in this assessment that were designed to identify potential deterrents to help seeking and difficulties encountered in care demonstrated clear principal component structures, and helped to explain satisfaction with care. The problem resolution index was found to be independent from satisfaction with care and the data were more normally distributed. DoC data were also associated with subsequent utilization and change in quality of life. Conclusion: The DoC was designed to be aflexible, integrated measure to determine individuals' salient service needs, help seeking and experiences in care. One of the many strengths of the assessment is its focus on specific problems in context, thus providing a more sensitive and informative way to understand processes in care from the patient's perspective. This approach can be used to direct new programs and resources to the patients and situations that require them.
AB - Background: Patient perceptions of and satisfaction with care have become important indicators of the quality of services and the relationship of services to treatment outcomes. However, assessment of these indicators continues to be plagued by measurement problems, particularly the lack of variance in satisfaction data. In this article, we present a new approach to better capture patient perceptions of experiences in care, the Dynamics of Care (DoC) assessment. It is an in-depth approach to defining and assessing patients' perspectives at different junctures in care, including their decisions about whether and where to seek care, the barriers encountered, and the treatments and services received. Methods: The purpose of this article is to describe, validate, and discuss the benefits and limitations of the DoC, which was administered as part of a longitudinal study to evaluate the New York State HIV Special Needs Plan (SNP), a Medicaid managed care model for people living with HIV/AIDS. Data are from 426 study respondents across two time points. Results: The results demonstrate the validity and value of the DoC. Help seeking decisions and satisfaction with care appear to be situation-specific, rather than person-specific. However, barriers to care appear to be more cross-situational for respondents, and may be associated with clients' living situations or care arrangements. Inventories in this assessment that were designed to identify potential deterrents to help seeking and difficulties encountered in care demonstrated clear principal component structures, and helped to explain satisfaction with care. The problem resolution index was found to be independent from satisfaction with care and the data were more normally distributed. DoC data were also associated with subsequent utilization and change in quality of life. Conclusion: The DoC was designed to be aflexible, integrated measure to determine individuals' salient service needs, help seeking and experiences in care. One of the many strengths of the assessment is its focus on specific problems in context, thus providing a more sensitive and informative way to understand processes in care from the patient's perspective. This approach can be used to direct new programs and resources to the patients and situations that require them.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=42549153489&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=42549153489&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1186/1477-7525-6-20
DO - 10.1186/1477-7525-6-20
M3 - Article
C2 - 18331632
AN - SCOPUS:42549153489
SN - 1477-7525
VL - 6
JO - Health and Quality of Life Outcomes
JF - Health and Quality of Life Outcomes
M1 - 20
ER -