An Empirical Study Investigating the Effectiveness of Integrating Anecdotal Patient Experiences into Healthcare Public Reports

Abstract

Public reports provided by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services provide information on the per-formance and quality of the healthcare professionals and hospitals, as a way to help consumers make in-formed decisions about their healthcare choices. Recent studies indicate that consumers’ infrequent use of public reports is due to reports’ poor design, irrelevant content, and inadequate dissemination. Patient gen-erated feedback is considered to be easily understandable to consumers as compared to the technical infor-mation provided in the public report. However, there has been limited research focused on the specific role of integrating such feedback into healthcare public reports, and its effect on the consumers’ decision mak-ing process. Using a between subjects design, 362 participants completed this study. The independent vari-ables were, anecdotal information: supporting or criticizing facilities presented; and performance of healthcare facility based on public report: below average, average and above average. Although participants based their decisions on public report information, negative anecdotal information influenced their decision when provided alongside positive public reports, suggesting that it is imperative to develop a new genre of decision aids to aid a consumer’s informed decision making process.