Broadening perspectives in health service assessment

8 Sep
Vicky Serra-Sutton
Vicky Serra-Sutton, sociologist PhD

What lies behind a significant volume of hospital readmissions? What makes a service present a good healthcare praxis? What obstacles are there when changing to a healthcare model such as in major out-patient surgery which encourages patients to go home on the same day as their operation? Do managers and nursing staff have the same opinion about what efficiency is in an operating theatre? What is the perception of professionals of the possible benefits of people-centred attention?

Do we all see a dragon?

Drac

Reality is complex and therefore approaches are needed which facilitate the interpretation and understanding of that reality. With qualitative research, places can be reached otherwise unattainable when using other methodological aproximations. When answering questions like those we asked ourselves previously, a truly qualitative approach is required. We need to make the approach using an adequate and credible technique to validate the process of all those involved and  to ensure precision in results as is done in quantitative research but not forgetting that we need to be critical and independent in the analysis made.

We will briefly outline the evolution of the qualitative approaches in the context of the assessment of health services. A reflection on the usefulness of qualitative techniques  in the assessment of health services or medical technologies is not a new one and you can find a series on this subject in the British Medical Journal of 1995 and in the Health Technology Assessment report of 1998.

bmj-1995-eng

Health assessment agencies have given great importance to questions about the scientific evidence available when talking about the efficiency and safety of treatments and biomedical interventions of a clinical nature. Randomized controlled trials and systematic reviews are considered to be the reference standards for causal atributions of the benefits of an intervention for the improvement in the health status of patients.

Society has evolved and the needs of the system adapt to this. We formulate new questions related to the preferences and expectations of users facing treatment and how different professionals contribute to providing better results in patient health care. One must bear in mind that when assessing the benefits and results of attention given,  many factors come into play.

In this context, the paradigm of evidence based medicine and the supposed superiority of quantitative approaches and of some study designs above others, have created obstacles in the application of qualitative research. In this sense, the letter to the editors of the British Medical Journal signed by more than 70 researchers of reference for giving their support to qualitative research is clear proof of this remaining obstacle.

bmj-2016-eng

Questioning the efficacy of a medical drug cannot be answered using a qualitative approach but we can broaden the scope of questions that we pose ourselves.

For example, we can consider asking ourselves questions, among others, about the preferences of patients, the perception of the benefits of a medical drug, the expectations or opinion of professionals that prescribe it or the possible reasons for a low adherence of the medical drug.

Another scenario could be that of a patient with osteoarthritis who has undergone a knee replacement (arthroplasty) and who is being attended by several professionals such as the primary care doctor, the traumatologist surgeon, the anaesthetist, the nurse, the physiotherapist and other professionals if the patient has other comorbidities. That patient has certain preferences and expectations which need to be understood and then give the health care to cover those needs, which can go beyond the mere surgical procedure.

With qualitative research we develop a discourse, texts, opinions and perceptions of people, communities, with images, perspectives, ideologies and complexities. We must guarantee rigour and that the photograph and interpretation of reality that we make remain valid and coherent for the research group and the populaton or group of people that we are assessing.

The application of qualitative techniques has been on the rise using interviews, semi-structured questionnaires, field notes, focus or discussion groups to gather the opinion of different groups of professionals and users.

From my point of view, there are three examples which can be of great use to know the approach and the process in carrying out an assessment of services with a qualitative approach:

  1. Opinions, experiences and perceptions of citizens regarding waiting lists
  2. Job satisfaction or productivity, a study exploring the opinions of different professional profiles regarding the efficiency of operating theatres
  3. What opinion do professionals have of the benefits of an integrated attention in the United Kingdom?

Avoiding the classic metrics means being able to measure in an alternative or complementary way by combining different approaches be they qualitative or quantitative. I find the introduction to qualitative research we find in René Brown’s TED talk the power of vulnerability. This qualitative researcher recommends we measure that which is apparently unmeasurable and go more in depth into the complex phenomenon of vulnerabilty.

We broaden perspectives by understanding the reality from within, by bearing in mind the multiple existing points of view to improve that which is disfunctional or by identifying better practices to spread them. We can measure what we want to measure. It will be necessary to adapt the approach to the context and audiences and to continue progressing to show with rigour and practice the usefulness of qualitative approaches.

We continue learning. This time, it has been at the Congrés Iberoamericà de Recerca Qualitativa en Salut (in Twitter #IICS2016) held in Barcelona, 5-7 September. The Agència de Qualitat i Avaluació Sanitàries de Catalunya (AQuAS) and the Agència de Salut Pública de Catalunya (ASPCAT) shared the stand to explain their experiences.

2016 Congreso Iberoamericano de Investigación Cualitativa en Salud
Santi Gómez Santos (AQuAS/ASPCAT), Dolors Rodríguez Arjona (ASPCAT), Mireia Espallargues (AQuAS), Vicky Serra-Sutton (AQuAS)

Post written by Vicky Serra-Sutton (@vserrasutton), sociologist PhD in AQuAS.

Public policy in times of crisis

28 Jan

SalutPoblacióWhat has happened in periods of economic crisis has also occurred at other moments in time and in other contexts. It is also a well-known fact that this can lead to an increase in mortality rates among the population (both due to general causes, as well as for certain specific causes, such as suicide), an increase in mental health problems and a worsening of lifestyles. We also know that inequalities in healthcare can increase, particularly as the crisis affects the most vulnerable members of society first.

The second report from the Observatory on the effects of the crisis on public health, publicly presented just before the Christmas holidays, closely monitors the principal socio-economic and health indicators at a territorial level (by regions) and analyses their evolution. It also analyses the relationship between socioeconomic and health indicators and provides information to define, or redefine, strategies aimed at tackling the effects of the crisis based on the needs identified through the report.

In this period of crisis in Catalonia, long-term unemployment, above all, has increased, and production (the gross value added in the economy) has declined. Household income has fallen, the percentage of people living below the poverty line has increased, especially those under 16 years of age, and the percentage of families receiving assistance from the social protection system has increased.

The fall in public revenue triggered a decrease in the budget, including the budget of the Department of Health, which was especially significant between 2011 and 2013. The health sector was forced to adjust, doing the same work but with less resources, improving efficiency while making every effort to do so without hindering the quantity and quality of healthcare service provision. However, in the period 2007-2013, life expectancy increased by 1.8 years (1.5 in women and 2.6 in men), as has been the case for life expectancy in good health.

Nevertheless, the impact of the economic situation on people’s health is evident: the unemployed have worse self-perceived health, especially those who have been out of work for over a year and present a higher risk prevalence of poor mental health. Similarly, tobacco sales, which is on the decline population-wide, increased among the unemployed, especially among men. Excessive alcohol consumption levels are also higher among the unemployed.

Focusing the analysis on the most vulnerable social groups, the report compares the population group aged 15 to 64 years, in other words, those who are exempt from the pharmacy copayment rates (basically unemployed people who have lost the right to unemployment benefits, receiving social insertion benefits, or have non-contributory pensions), with those who are subject to copayment. In Catalonia, in 2014 there were 187,775 people aged between 15 and 64, exempt from copayment rates (2.3% of the population). Those who were exempt are statistically twice as likely to consume psychoactive drugs that people subject to co-payment and have 1.5 times greater likelihood of being admitted to hospital. This group made 1.4 times the number of visits to primary care, and were treated in mental health centres 3.5 times more than the other group.

There is no question that public, social and economic policy has an impact on a population’s level of health and that they modulate the influence of socioeconomic, gender and immigration factors on health inequalities. Social protection policies seem to be effective in cushioning the influence of macroeconomic fluctuations on mortality rates. Policies aimed at equality contribute to improving health inequalities. The consequences of the crisis in Russia in the early 90s had little in comparison with those suffered by Finland during the same period. The main reason for this being the policies implemented by both governments.

Given the complexity and the multiple impacts produced by economic crises, the public policy-centred method to mitigate its effects must be approached from different sectors. Tools like the Interdepartmental Public Health Plan (PINSAP), as per the Catalan acronym, are key to ensuring this cross-sectoral approach, targeting factors which impact health to reduce or eliminate health inequalities. Another fundamental step is to maintain social protection (unemployment benefits, retirement benefits, family assistance, etc.) to mitigate the decline in family income and its consequences. However, this must go hand-in-hand with policy aimed at generating employment and promoting the rapid reintegration into the workplace. Education policy is the other mainstay, given the relationship between education, income and health, and the fact that it acts as a “social ladder” between generations. Policies aimed at the most vulnerable groups, such as lower income families and children, also deserve special attention.

Finally, it is essential that the implementation of these public policies are evaluated in the medium and long-term in order to continually validate their utility and impact, and to enable policymakers to adapt these programs to meet an ever-changing environment.

Post written by Veva Barba, Dolores Ruiz-Muñoz and Anna García-Altés (@annagaal),