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 | health surveys | how and why
Why does Bupa measure health outcomes?
Quality in healthcare
When you come to Bupa you naturally expect an expert team of healthcare professionals and efficient hospital management, supported by a company that is well known for quality in healthcare. But good quality demands that doctors and hospital staff are always on the lookout for anything that can be improved.
Understanding how we improve depends on carefully measuring our performance. Accordingly, all aspects of care in our hospitals are checked against predicted levels, and hospitals then compare their results against each other to be sure that they are doing as good as job for their patients as anywhere else.
Typically however, doctors and hospitals have found it difficult to measure how well their patients recover after leaving hospital. They may know that the operation went perfectly and that all the aftercare was as expected. But are the patients actually feeling better? And have they recovered full health as quickly as patients at another hospital, or in another country? Getting complete answers to these questions can be difficult, not least because when a doctor greets you at a follow-up appointment and asks how you are feeling, the natural inclination is to say, "I'm fine, thanks..." You may still have some pain, or be feeling tired, but how are you to know if that is normal?
Measuring "health outcomes"
This is where health survey questionnaires come in. Although the questionnaires we use (see SF-36 and VF-14 explanation pages) are simple to answer and seemingly quite bland, the surveys are carefully tested to ensure that the answers really do reflect the clinical condition for which the patient is being treated.
The whole process of measuring health status becomes especially valuable when we ask a patient to fill in a health survey before they have treatment, and then complete the same type of questionnaire a few months after leaving hospital. We would expect to see an improvement, of course. Either the pain has gone, or the disability has been removed, or the person is now able to get on with their normal social and work life. But when we compare that patient's score against the hundreds of others who have had exactly the same operation, we can at last have a clear measure of how that person's recovery compares to others.
When we then combine all the results of the patients treated by a particular consultant, or a particular hospital, we can compare the scores with consultants and hospitals doing the same type of surgery. That often shows that some hospitals get better results than others. We can then help those who are getting the lower results to find out from those with the best results, what it is they are doing differently. In this way, learning is shared and standards raised upwards to match the best.
Links
What is the SF-36 questionnaire?
What is the VF-14 questionnaire?
Health outcomes of Bupa operations
How to interpret physical and mental health scores
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