Examining the effectiveness of strategies by community-based physician groups to improve the patient experience

This project will provide new guidance to physician groups about successful strategies to improve patients' experiences in ambulatory health care settings. The study investigators will partner with Massachusetts Health Quality Partners to examine whether community-based physician groups throughout Massachusetts target recommended, high-priority, patient-experience-survey (PES) domains for improvement. They will also assess the effectiveness of specific PES-improvement strategies employed by these groups. This project is one of twelve that the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation is supporting to respond to heightened concern across the country about the ballooning costs and poor quality of health care. In April 2010, the Foundation issued a broad call for ideas from the field to rein in spending without jeopardizing patient care. RWJF received 277 proposals and, based on input from independent reviewers, selected the most novel ideas and those most likely to engender far-reaching change. These grants, totaling $3.1 million, address issues in value-based purchasing, quality improvement support, public reporting of provider performance, and data collection and aggregation for performance measurement. Deliverables for this project will include two manuscripts submitted for publication in peer-reviewed scientific or health policy journals, presentations of findings at scientific meetings and a final report delivered to the Foundation.

Grant Details

Amount Awarded $299,402.00

Awarded on: 11/1/2010

Time frame: 11/1/2010 - 1/31/2013

Grant Number: 68267