Developing a User Reported Measure of Care Co-ordination.

Area of Science:

• Gerontology
• Health Services Research
• Patient Experience

Background:

• Fragmented care delivery negatively impacts older adults with chronic conditions.
• Existing tools are insufficient for capturing patient perspectives on care coordination.
• There is a need to understand patient experiences across health and social care services.

Purpose of the Study:

• To design and test a survey tool for assessing the care coordination experiences of older adults with chronic conditions.
• To capture patient perspectives on the integration of health and social care services.
• To inform improvements in care coordination from a patient-centered viewpoint.

Main Methods:

• Literature review on care coordination theory and existing surveys.
• Stakeholder consultation with health/social care professionals and experts.
• Questionnaire development focused on home care, planned, and unplanned transitions.
• Testing through focus groups, cognitive interviews, and a postal pilot survey.
• Sampling from general practice records and a local authority population database.

Main Results:

• A 46-item survey tool was developed and tested.
• The pilot survey achieved a 27.6% response rate (n=562).
• High response completeness (95% answered ≥30 questions) and item correlations were observed.

Conclusions:

• The developed survey tool shows promise for capturing patient experiences of care coordination.
• It can inform improvements in care coordination across organizational and professional boundaries.
• Further large-scale testing in diverse settings is needed to validate efficacy and improve response rates.