title: Home healthcare orders: an assessment of service satisfaction by internists, surgeons, and medical subspecialists.
abstract: We conducted a pilot study to evaluate the satisfaction of general internists, medical subspecialists, and surgeons with the quality of home health orders generated by home health agencies. Using a mail survey, we polled 69 physician specialists at Tulane University Medical Center. The percentage of physicians satisfied with the appropriateness of services for the level and type of care, consistency of medication with that prescribed, sufficiency of data on the certification form to assess service continuation, timeliness of orders, and overall health service delivery was 94%, 92%, 69%, 52%, and 88%, respectively. Compared with medical subspecialists and surgeons, general internists were more likely to report that the data on the form were sufficient. Physicians who were satisfied with at least one of the four measures of quality for home health orders were more likely to be satisfied with the overall delivery of services by home health agencies. Our results demonstrate, for the first time, that physicians overall are satisfied with home healthcare orders. However, level of satisfaction with orders is related to the physician's specialty. Areas that physicians were less satisfied with included timeliness of orders and sufficiency of data on the form to assess service continuation. Further studies using a larger population and more specific indicators of healthcare orders quality are recommended.
authors.affiliation: Tulane University Medical Center, Department of Medicine, New Orleans, LA 70112, USA.
authors.forename: I
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Perkins
authors.forename: W C
authors.initials: WC
authors.lastname: Steinmann
mesh_terms: D001291:Attitude of Health Personnel; D003258:Consumer Behavior / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D003625:Data Collection; D004358:Drug Therapy / Q000592:standards; D013502:General Surgery; D006280:Health Workforce; D006699:Home Care Services / Q000592:standards*; D006801:Humans; D007388:Internal Medicine; D008145:Louisiana; D010820:Physicians / Q000523:psychology* / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D010865:Pilot Projects; D011787:Quality of Health Care; D013038:Specialization