Patient outcomes explained

What are Patient Outcomes? 

Patient outcomes are the results from care and treatments patients have received whilst in hospital, other clinical or care settings. They focus on meeting the physical, social, and emotional needs of patients from their own perspective to highlight what is important to them.  

Often patient outcomes are gathered from three key areas: 

1. The maintenance of patient functional status  
2. The maintenance of patient safety  
3. Patient satisfaction 

In order to have positive patient outcomes it is essential that healthcare professionals are aware of the aims and have effective measurements in place to record results and improve on them.

Why are patient outcomes important? 

Using patient outcomes is important to allow healthcare providers to evaluate and review patients’ experiences in their hospitals or practices. It allows the patient’s perspective to be heard so their aims can be considered more frequently in the future to improve both their physical and mental wellbeing.  

The use of patient-reported outcomes (PROs) are crucial in understanding how patients feel. By using patient-reported outcomes a variety of aspects can be reviewed and updated: 

• Treatment plans can be adapted to ensure patients get what they want and need  
• Details about how certain treatments and therapies affect patients can be discovered  
• New treatments can be created by what patients say about their own experiences  
• Further research can be influenced to ensure care plans are more focused to create real benefits for both the healthcare provider and the individual

Patient outcomes explained - What are the measures? 

Having both effective patient outcomes and measures to record them is crucial for best practice. Poorer patient outcomes can be very non-specific and not improve measures and poorer measures can identify what patients want, but it can lead to the data not being interpreted very well.

Patient recorded outcome measures (PROMs) 

Patient recorded outcome measures (PROMs) assess the quality of care delivered to the patients to calculate the health gains after a treatment using pre- and post-operative surveys. They have been used since April 2009 to measure a patient’s health status and reflect upon their quality of life at a single point in time.  

Using patient recorded outcome measures considers a variety of concepts including: 

• Quality of care  
• Patient satisfaction  
• Physical function  
• Psychological state 
• Signs and symptoms 
• Social functioning  
• Treatment adherence  
• Readmissions  

Examples of patient recorded outcome measures 

Most commonly, questionnaires and surveys are used to record patient outcomes. What is essential to think about when creating a survey is how the questions will be delivered, when specific questions will be asked, and how they will be recorded.  

Questionnaires and surveys are used most frequently, however they are not always the best option. Sometimes interviews and focus groups can be used. The advantage of using interviews can allow both more structured questions to be asked to patients but also freedom to let patients talk about what they really care about. Equally focus groups allow a more facilitated and stimulated discussion for one specific area. Virtual assistants offer the ability to record PROMs using an online, digitally inclusive chat bot. Rio Virtual Assistant sends a link to patients where feedback can be recorded in natural, two-way conversation, to improve the uptake of PROMs assessments. Here by patients speaking to an online bot that shows empathy, patients can have more freedom to really speak about how they feel in their own time.

How to improve patient outcomes? 

In order to improve patient outcomes, a team approach is needed where team leaders provide other healthcare professionals with training and guidance for better practice. Here are five steps to improve patient outcomes collated from medical experts and professionals: 

1. Reduce medical errors – WHO, estimates that adverse health outcomes from unsafe care are 1 of the 10 leading causes of deaths worldwide. 
2. Ensure continuity of care and discharge procedures –  Studies in psychiatric medical treatment found 30-50% of patients fail to attend aftercare within 30 days of discharge.  Information transfers across inpatient and outpatients need to work effectively, and patients need to understand the importance of attending outpatient appointments to continue their treatment.  
   
   
3. Communication with patients – Bukstein, the Director of Allergy and Asthma Research at Dean Medical Center found that patients should be involved in conversations on what treatments would best suit them and each treatment should be clearly communicated to avoid any resource barriers surrounding health literacy.  
   
   
4. Increase staff levels and their skillset- The University of Southampton provides evidence that high staff levels and enhanced skillsets are important to improve patient outcomes and reduce mortality rates.  
   
   
5. Analyse data effectively – 95% of patient data resides outside the care management systems and these gaps create significant barriers. Use details from findings to create baselines for patient outcomes and use electronic patient records (EPR) to make it easier for patients to access care services more easily. Until recently, EPR systems were only feasible for larger NHS trusts, but now cloud computing means EPR is not just for hospitals. 

Patient outcomes explained – Does centered-care improve patient outcomes? 

In 2017, a cross-sectional survey on centered-care and patient outcomes was conducted. 

A variety of patients took part and it was clear that both patient-centered care and co-creation of care were associated positively with patient satisfaction. The study made clear that to improve patient outcomes dramatically, more engagement with tailored care to everyone's needs is essential. By doing this, patients trusted nurses more and were more likely to listen and use advice given during the discharge procedure. 

Patient outcomes explained – does patient education improve health outcomes? 

In the modern stressful world of healthcare, it can be easy to use hospitals and the pressure they are under as a scapegoat when things don’t go to plan. Patients not only need to understand their conditions but how procedures work within hospitals too.  

The main issue with patient education is limited health literacy. Long, complicated words and acronyms are confusing for most people, let alone when you are ill or anxious about a procedure. The NHS have identified that 4 in 10 adults struggle with understanding health content.

Constant, clear, and concise communication is vital to improve patient outcomes. Sending guides about what to do before and on the day of your treatment is one effective way of educating patients on what to expect.  

Educating patients on their discharge is also crucial. Healthcare professionals need to be aware that patients might not always have the mental capacity to remember all the information. So, in some situations the discharge process and any medication information will need to be explained to patients’ support networks.  

Better patient education in general supports preventative care services because patients will have all the correct information on how to manage their condition and how to use medication properly without any problems.

The NHS estimates 5% of its national health spending is due to health literacy problems and advises that all written content is written at a level most users understand to reduce these problems occurring and recommends that anyone writing content must: 

1. Do your research on low health literacy and understand there is a link between low health literacy levels and the most socio-economically deprived areas  
2. Follow The NHS design principles when creating content  
3. Follow advice on how to write for NHS digital services

 

Improving patient outcomes in nursing – the tools 

To achieve the best patient outcomes, digital tools should be used to easily integrate and share information across different areas within the care system. Being aware that patient records need to be accessible and understandable to both healthcare professionals and the patients themselves is crucial to achieve patient satisfaction.

Why not discover a demo with our Rio Cloud EPR (Electronic Patient Record system) to experience real-time patient information as it changes and get a holistic picture to secondary care to improve patient outcomes and reduce costs.  

To find out more about electronic patient record systems and their growing use outside of larger NHS trusts, download EPR white paper.