title: Patients' and clinicians' views of comparing the performance of providers of surgery: a qualitative study.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  Comparison of providers' outcomes is intended to encourage patient choice and stimulate clinicians to improve the quality of their services. Given that success will depend on how patients and clinicians respond, our aim was to explore their views of using outcome data to compare providers.
  
  
  METHODS
  Qualitative data from six focus groups with patients (n = 45) and seven meetings with surgical clinicians (n = 107) were collected during autumn 2010. Discussions audio-taped, transcribed and a thematic analysis carried out.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Patients and clinicians confirmed the value of making comparisons of the outcomes of providers publicly available. However, both groups harboured three principal concerns: the validity of the data; fears that the data would be misinterpreted by the media, politicians and commissioners, and the focus should not just be on providers but also on the performance of individual surgeons. In addition, patients felt that information on providers' outcomes would only ever have a limited impact on their choice because there were other important factors to be taken into account: accessibility, waiting time, the size of the provider and the quality of other aspects such as cleanliness and nursing. Also patients acknowledged the importance of friends' and relatives' experiences and that they would seek their GP's advice.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  While comparisons of providers' outcomes should be available to patients to stimulate improvements in performance, information should be directed principally to hospital clinicians and to GPs. Impact may be enhanced by providing data on individual clinicians rather than providers. The extent to which these findings are generalizable to other areas of health care is uncertain.
authors.affiliation: Department of Health Services Research & Policy, London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, London, UK.
authors.forename: Zoe
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Hildon
authors.forename: Dominique
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Allwood
authors.forename: Nick
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Black
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D001291:Attitude of Health Personnel; D001294:Attitude to Health; D002983:Clinical Competence / Q000592:standards*; D005260:Female; D017144:Focus Groups; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D017063:Outcome Assessment, Health Care / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D011785:Quality Assurance, Health Care; D066231:Surgeons / Q000523:psychology / Q000592:standards*
keywords: patient-reported outcome measures; patients' views; provider comparisons; surgery