Involving patients in detecting quality gaps in a fragmented healthcare system

"Measurement and reporting of patients' experiences have become an important element of health-service evaluation worldwide. Several reports, in particular from the USA, have shown that fragmentation of modern healthcare systems has serious implications for patients and their quality of care, despite the stipulation that modern healthcare systems provide a sophisticated level of medical care, knowledge and technology. However, fragmentation between sectors also poses a challenge for patients and healthcare providers. This is most evident in the increasing complexity of managing patients living with chronic illness and cancer, where many actors are involved in the delivery of a complex chain of care across multiple sectors. In turn, this leads to particular problems at the transition points between care sectors. (...)  Patients' perspectives are critical to this expansion process...

In Germany, (...) a comprehensive program for quality improvement across healthcare sectors (...), established in 2009, is focused on the complete patient care journey across sectoral borders: from the phase of diagnosis to the phase of discharge and transition continued with the outpatient follow-up care. As the SQG program is based on quality indicator development and measurement, feedback from patients via surveys provides an important method to evaluate performance of state-funded healthcare providers (...).

The purpose of this study was to develop and validate a generic questionnaire to evaluate experiences and reported outcomes in patients who receive treatment across a range of healthcare sectors".