Patients trust their specialist’s opinion more than hospital performance reports to help them select where to have treatment, Australian research suggests.
Public performance reporting (PPR) against 48 indicators, including cancer surgery wait times, is mandatory for public hospitals and voluntary for private hospitals, and is part of a push for greater transparency and quality improvement.
The data is published on the government’s MyHospitals site, while some large private providers also publish their own websites.
In a Melbourne University study, researchers surveyed 228 private patients who had surgery for breast, bowel and lung cancer, to ascertain whether PPR was being used to inform decision making, and how it could be improved.
Most (94%) patients were treated in a private hospital and about half were treated at the hospital of choice, a quarter had no choice and a quarter had no preference.
None of the patients reported that a ‘performance reporting website’ had any bearing on decision-making. Instead, 90% named ‘specialist’ the biggest factor to influence which hospital they went to. This was followed by hospital reputation (24%), distance from home (24%) and own experience (18%).
When asked why they had not used PPR one patient reported: “I was too sick to do any research at the time. I took advice from my specialist”.
Another reported: “We only have a private and public hospital where I live, so choice was limited regardless of the information provided.”
Choice being restricted to the hospital or hospitals where their specialist performed surgery was also a theme, wrote Khic-Hout Prang from the University of Melbourne’s School of Population and Global Health and co-authors in BMJ Open.