Development and Content Validity of a Patient-Reported Experience Measure for Home Dialysis

Patient-Reported Experience Measures to Evaluate and Improve the Quality of Care in Nephrology

Patient experience is considered a pillar of high-quality care, integral to patient-centered care, but despite significant policy focus on patient-reported experience measures (PREMs), little is published regarding their development, use, or impact on clinical practice. In nephrology, PREMs are increasingly used in research to capture and quantify patients' perceptions of their experiences with health care services. It has been shown that a negative patient experience impacts patients' physical and psychological health, and a small but significant proportion of patients across a selection of settings report their experiences of health care as poor or suboptimal. Evidence of whether PREMs improve quality of care or support person-centered care in the clinical setting remains largely theoretical. Extensive effort has been invested to develop various PREMs for kidney services. Although little evidence linking PREM collection to meaningful change in delivery of care currently exists, work is underway. Early indications are that with the right facilitators, implementing PREMs in routine practice can help providers recognize where change is needed and galvanize transformation. The journey toward understanding the connection between PREM data and modifiable provider characteristics to target and enable change has started, but further evidence is needed. This article outlines the history of PREMs in nephrology and details their current use alongside implementation challenges. The use and benefits of PREMs are discussed before considering the evidence base for their impact on renal health care. Possible next steps for PREMs are suggested and best practices highlighted.

Adaptation and content validation of a patient-reported measure of treatment burden for use in stroke survivors: the patient experience with treatment and self-management in stroke (PETS-stroke) measure

PURPOSE

Stroke survivors often live with significant treatment burden yet our ability to examine this is limited by a lack of validated measurement instruments. We aimed to adapt the 60-item, 12-domain Patient Experience with Treatment and Self-Management (PETS) (version 2.0, English) patient-reported measure to create a stroke-specific measure (PETS-stroke) and to conduct content validity testing with stroke survivors.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

Step 1 - Adaptation of PETS to create PETS-stroke: a conceptual model of treatment burden in stroke was utilised to amend, remove or add items. Step 2 - Content validation: Fifteen stroke survivors in Scotland were recruited through stroke groups and primary care. Three rounds of five cognitive interviews were audio recorded and transcribed. Framework analysis was used to explore importance/relevance/clarity of PETS-stroke content. COSMIN reporting guidelines were followed.

RESULTS

The adapted PETS-stroke had 34 items, spanning 13 domains; 10 items unchanged from PETS, 6 new and 18 amended. Interviews (n = 15) resulted in further changes to 19 items, including: instructions; wording; item location; answer options; and recall period.

CONCLUSIONS

PETS-stroke has content that is relevant, meaningful and comprehensible to stroke survivors. Content validity and reliability testing are now required. The validated tool will aid testing of tailored interventions to lessen treatment burden.

Patient Perceptions of Emergency Department Observation Care at Home

Introduction: The Virtual Observation Unit (VOU) utilizes telehealth and community paramedicine to provide observation-level care in patients' homes. Patients' experience of this novel program has not been reported. Methods: A phone-based patient experience survey was administered to the patients who were admitted to the VOU at an urban, academic Emergency Department in the Northeast United States. The survey asked about patient's perception of the program's quality of care (0 = worst care possible, 10 = best care possible). t Tests with a Bonferroni adjustment assessed for differences between patient demographic groups. Results: The survey response rate was 40% (124/307). Overall mean scores for perceived quality of care were very high (9.51 ± 1.19). There were no significant differences in patient's perception of quality of care between demographic cohorts of age, gender, race, or ethnicity. Conclusions: Patient experience with a novel VOU program was very positive and did not differ significantly by demographic cohort. Further research is warranted.

Consumer values, perspectives and experiences of psychological health when living with dialysis at home: An in-depth interview study

BACKGROUND

People treated with home dialysis report social and emotional isolation, fear of catastrophic events and concern about being a burden. There is a paucity of research exploring psychological well-being among consumers dialysing at home. We aimed to explore the psychological health issues related to home dialysis, and how these issues may impact on sustaining home-based treatment.

METHODS

We conducted a qualitative interview study with 36 consumers. We included patients with experience of home dialysis and caregivers. Thirteen participants had experienced peritoneal dialysis, seven home haemodialysis, seven had experienced both and nine caregivers. Data were analysed inductively to generate themes and a conceptual framework.

RESULTS

We identified four themes and subthemes: overwhelming isolation and disconnection (devastating isolation of home dialysis; abandoned from support; escalating anxiety; compounding impact of feeling like a burden); importance of support systems (impact on relationships; need for emotional support; reassurance through shared experiences; valuing trustworthy and committed clinicians); burden of distress (individualised feelings of low mood; grappling with stigma surrounding diagnosis; contemplating treatment withdrawal and suicide); seeking mental health support (normalising mental health support as a distinct entity in dialysis care; overcoming barriers to seeking mental health support; additional tools for mental health support and connection).

CONCLUSION

Consumers may experience intense psychological distress during home-based dialysis care. Increasing clinician and health services literacy about the management of psychological impacts of home-based dialysis may improve consumer safety, quality of life and sustainability of home treatment.

Personalized peritoneal dialysis prescription-beyond clinical or analytical values

Traditionally, dialysis adequacy has been assessed primarily by determining the clearance of a single small solute, urea. Nevertheless, it has become increasingly evident that numerous other factors play a crucial role in the overall well-being, outcomes and quality of life of dialysis patients. Consequently, in recent years, there has been a notable paradigm shift in guidelines and recommendations regarding dialysis adequacy. This shift represents a departure from a narrow focus only on the removal of specific toxins, embracing a more holistic, person-centered approach. This new perspective underscores the critical importance of improving the well-being of individuals undergoing dialysis while simultaneously minimizing the overall treatment burden. It is based on a double focus on both clinical outcomes and a comprehensive patient experience. To achieve this, a person-centered approach must be embraced when devising care strategies for each individual. This requires a close collaboration between the healthcare team and the patient, facilitating an in-depth understanding of the patient's unique goals, priorities and preferences while striving for the highest quality of care during treatment. The aim of this publication is to address the existing evidence on this all-encompassing approach to treatment care for patients undergoing peritoneal dialysis and provide a concise overview to promote a deeper understanding of this person-centered approach.

Evaluation and Measurement Properties of a Patient-Reported Experience Measure for Home Dialysis

BACKGROUND

No previously validated patient-reported experience measures exist for use among patients undergoing home dialysis. We tested the Home Dialysis Care Experience survey, a newly developed 26-item experience measure, among patients from 30 dialysis facilities in the United States.

METHODS

Using mail and telephone survey modalities, we approached 1372 patients treated with peritoneal dialysis or home hemodialysis for participation. Using the results from completed surveys, we evaluated item calibration by assessing item floor and ceiling effects. We tested three sets of composite scores and used factor analysis to assess model fit for each. We evaluated associations of composite scores with global ratings and separately with patient and dialysis facility characteristics. Finally, we measured test-retest reliability in patients who completed the survey at two separate time points.

RESULTS

Overall, 495 eligible patients completed at least one survey (response rate 36%). Of these, 49 completed the survey in Spanish and 61 completed a second survey within 30 days. We did not detect significant floor or ceiling effects, except for one item that demonstrated >90% responses at the top response option. Analyses supported one 12-item composite scale with high internal consistency reliability: Quality of Home Dialysis Care and Operations (Cronbach alpha=0.85). This scale strongly correlated with overall staff rating ( r =0.73) and overall center rating ( r =0.70). Patient demographic and dialysis facility characteristics were not consistently associated with composite scale scores or overall staff or center ratings. Intraclass correlation coefficients in the test-retest population were 0.74 for the Quality scale, 0.88 for overall staff rating, and 0.90 for overall center rating.

CONCLUSIONS

The Home Dialysis Care Experience survey is a 26-item measure that includes one composite scale and two global rating scores and is an informative tool to evaluate patient experience of care for home dialysis.

Patient-Centered Quality Measures for Dialysis Care: A Report of a Kidney Disease Outcomes Quality Initiative (KDOQI) Scientific Workshop Sponsored by the National Kidney Foundation

Providing high-quality patient-centered care is the central mission of dialysis facilities. Assessing quality and patient-centeredness of dialysis care is necessary for continuous dialysis facility improvement. Based predominantly on readily measured items, current quality measures in dialysis care emphasize biochemical and utilization outcomes, with very few patient-reported items. Additionally, current metrics often do not account for patient preferences and may compromise patient-centered care by limiting the ability of providers to individualize care targets, such as dialysis adequacy, based on patient priorities rather than a fixed numerical target. Developing, implementing, and maintaining a quality program using readily quantifiable data while also allowing for individualization of care targets that emphasize the goals of patients and their care partners provided the motivation for a September 2022 Kidney Disease Outcomes Quality Initiative (KDOQI) Workshop on Patient-Centered Quality Measures for Dialysis Care. Workshop participants focused on 4 questions: (1) What are the outcomes that are most important to patients and their care partners? (2) How can social determinants of health be accounted for in quality measures? (3) How can individualized care be effectively addressed in population-level quality programs? (4) What are the optimal means for collecting valid and robust patient-reported outcome data? Workshop participants identified numerous gaps within the current quality system and favored a conceptually broader, but not larger, quality system that stresses highly meaningful and adaptive measures that incorporate patient-centered principles, individual life goals, and social risk factors. Workshop participants also identified a need for new, low-burden tools to assess patient goals and priorities.

Delivering Person-Centered Peritoneal Dialysis

Peritoneal dialysis (PD) enables people to have a home-based therapy, permitting greater autonomy for individuals along with enhanced treatment satisfaction compared with in-center dialysis care. The burden of treatment on PD, however, remains considerable and underpins the need for person-centered care. This reflects the need to address the patient as a person with needs and preferences beyond just the medical perspective. Shared decision making is central to the recent International Society for Peritoneal Dialysis recommendations for prescribing PD, balancing the potential benefits of PD on patient well-being with the burden associated with treatment. This review considers the role of high-quality goal-directed prescribing, incremental dialysis, and remote patient monitoring in reducing the burden of dialysis, including an approach to implementing incremental PD. Although patient-related outcomes are important in assessing the response to treatment and, particularly life participation, the corollary of dialysis burden, there are no clear routes to the clinical implementation of patient-related outcome measures. Delivering person-centered care is dependent on treating people both as individuals and as equal partners in their care.

The added value of the artificial intelligence patient-reported experience measure (AI-PREM tool) in clinical practise: Deployment in a vestibular schwannoma care pathway

Objectives

Patient-reported experience measures (PREMs) can be used for the improvement of quality of care. In this study, the outcome of an open-ended question PREM combined with computer-assisted analysis is compared to the outcome of a closed-ended PREM questionnaire.

Methods

This survey study assessed the outcome of the open-ended questionnaire PREM and a close-ended question PREM of patients with unilateral vestibular schwannoma in a tertiary vestibular schwannoma expert centre.

Results

The open-ended questions PREM, consisting of five questions, was completed by 507 participants and resulted in 1508 positive and 171 negative comments, categorised into 27 clusters. The close-ended questions PREM results were mainly positive (overall experience graded as 8/10), but did not identify specific action points. Patients who gave high overall scores (>8) on the close-ended question provided points for improvement in the open-ended question PREM, which would have been missed using the close-ended questions only.

Conclusions

Compared to the close-ended question PREM, the open-ended question PREM provides more detailed and specific information about the patient experience in the vestibular schwannoma care pathway.

Innovation

Automated analysis of feedback with the open-ended question PREM revealed relevant insights and identified topics for targeted quality improvement, whereas the close-ended PREM did not.

System-Level Strategies to Improve Home Dialysis: Policy Levers and Quality Initiatives

Advocacy and policy change are powerful levers to improve quality of care and better support patients on home dialysis. While the kidney community increasingly recognizes the value of home dialysis as an option for patients who prioritize independence and flexibility, only a minority of patients dialyze at home in the United States. Complex system-level factors have restricted further growth in home dialysis modalities, including limited infrastructure, insufficient staff for patient education and training, patient-specific barriers, and suboptimal physician expertise. In this article, we outline trends in home dialysis use, review our evolving understanding of what constitutes high-quality care for the home dialysis population (as well as how this can be measured), and discuss policy and advocacy efforts that continue to shape the care of US patients and compare them with experiences in other countries. We conclude by discussing future directions for quality and advocacy efforts.

Home dialysis: conclusions from a Kidney Disease: Improving Global Outcomes (KDIGO) Controversies Conference

Home dialysis modalities (home hemodialysis [HD] and peritoneal dialysis [PD]) are associated with greater patient autonomy and treatment satisfaction compared with in-center modalities, yet the level of home-dialysis use worldwide is low. Reasons for limited utilization are context-dependent, informed by local resources, dialysis costs, access to healthcare, health system policies, provider bias or preferences, cultural beliefs, individual lifestyle concerns, potential care-partner time, and financial burdens. In May 2021, KDIGO (Kidney Disease: Improving Global Outcomes) convened a controversies conference on home dialysis, focusing on how modality choice and distribution are determined and strategies to expand home-dialysis use. Participants recognized that expanding use of home dialysis within a given health system requires alignment of policy, fiscal resources, organizational structure, provider incentives, and accountability. Clinical outcomes across all dialysis modalities are largely similar, but for specific clinical measures, one modality may have advantages over another. Therefore, choice among available modalities is preference-sensitive, with consideration of quality of life, life goals, clinical characteristics, family or care-partner support, and living environment. Ideally, individuals, their care-partners, and their healthcare teams will employ shared decision-making in assessing initial and subsequent kidney failure treatment options. To meet this goal, iterative, high-quality education and support for healthcare professionals, patients, and care-partners are priorities. Everyone who faces dialysis should have access to home therapy. Facilitating universal access to home dialysis and expanding utilization requires alignment of policy considerations and resources at the dialysis-center level, with clear leadership from informed and motivated clinical teams.

Conceptual Framework for Integrating Family Caregivers Into the Health Care Team: A Scoping Review

More than 80% of family care partners of older adults are responsible for coordinating care between and among providers; yet, their inclusion in the health care delivery process lacks recognition, coordination, and standardization. Despite efforts to include care partners (e.g., through informal or formal proxy access to their care recipient's patient portal), policies and procedures around care partner inclusion are complex and inconsistently implemented. We conducted a scoping review of peer-reviewed articles published from 2015 to 2021 and reviewed a final sample of 45 U.S.-based studies. Few articles specifically examine the inclusion of care partners in health care teams; those that do, do not define or measure care partner inclusion in a standardized way. Efforts to consider care partners as "partners" rather than "visitors" require further consideration of how to build health care teams inclusive of care partners. Incentives for health care organizations and providers to practice inclusive team-building may be required.

Patient Experience With an In-Home COVID Virtual Observation Unit: An Analysis

We performed a retrospective cohort study of patients admitted to a novel, home-based COVID Virtual Observation Unit (CVOU) from an urban, university-affiliated emergency department with ∼112,000 annual visits. Telephone-based survey questions were administered by nursing staff working with the program. Of 402 patients enrolled in the CVOU, 221 (55%) were able to be contacted during the study period; 180 (45%) agreed to participate in the telephone interview. Overall, 95% (169 out of 177) of the surveyed patients reported 8 to 10 on the likelihood to recommend CVOU and 82% (100 out of 122) rated the quality of care as 10 out of 10. Over 90% of respondents reported that all role groups (nurses, paramedics, and physicians) treated them with courtesy and respect, explained things in an understandable way, and listened to them carefully. Over 80% of respondents reported that the program kept them at home. In summary, patient experiences with this novel home-based care program were highly positive. These data help underscore the importance of patient-centeredness in home-based care, and further support the concept of these innovative care models.

Utilising low-cost, easy-to-use microscopy techniques for early peritonitis infection screening in peritoneal dialysis patients

Peritoneal dialysis (PD) patients are at high risk for peritonitis, an infection of the peritoneum that affects 13% of PD users annually. Relying on subjective peritonitis symptoms results in delayed treatment, leading to high hospitalisation costs, peritoneal scarring, and premature transition to haemodialysis. We have developed and tested a low-cost, easy-to-use technology that uses microscopy and image analysis to screen for peritonitis across the effluent drain tube. Compared to other technologies, our prototype is made from off-the-shelf, low-cost materials. It can be set up quickly and key stakeholders believe it can improve the overall PD experience. We demonstrate that our prototype classifies infection-indicating and healthy white blood cell levels in clinically collected patient effluent with 94% accuracy. Integration of our technology into PD setups as a screening tool for peritonitis would enable earlier physician notification, allowing for prompt diagnosis and treatment to prevent hospitalisations, reduce scarring, and increase PD longevity. Our findings demonstrate the versatility of microscopy and image analysis for infection screening and are a proof of principle for their future applications in health care.

From Home Dialysis Access to Home Dialysis Quality

The number and percentage of patients dialyzing at home has steadily increased during the past decade, and federal policy initiatives have driven interest to a new high. However, the mere utilization of home dialysis does not ensure better outcomes for patients and care partners. Although public reporting systems for dialysis quality are mature and robust, the incorporation of home dialysis quality in those systems is immature; the advent of the End-Stage Renal Disease Treatment Choices payment model brings this problem into sharp relief. The home dialysis modalities present both common and unique targets for quality measurement. For both modalities, therapy duration (or its inverse, technique failure) is a potential target. For peritoneal dialysis, peritonitis, catheter complications, and residual kidney function are additional targets; for home hemodialysis, vascular access infections, dialysis adequacy, and treatment adherence are targets. Patient-reported experience measures are also important; this domain is a long-standing disparity, as in-facility hemodialysis patients have been routinely surveyed for several years. The statistical aspect of quality measurement in home dialysis requires some adaptation, as the typical home dialysis program is small, thus presenting a threat to reliability; pooling programs may be necessary. Ultimately, promoting high-quality home dialysis will likely increase utilization of home dialysis.

Assessment of Patient Experience of Care in Home Dialysis Around the World: Enhancing the Patient’s Voice in Home Dialysis Care and Research

With the global growth in the use of home dialysis modalities, there is a need to better understand patients’ experiences with their home dialysis care.  Patient-reported experience measures or PREMs, are standardized survey questionnaires that allow patients to provide input on processes and experiences of care in a confidential and validated manner.  Until recently, no validated PREM has been available for assessment of patient-reported experience of care for home dialysis modalities, including peritoneal dialysis or home hemodialysis.  The Home Dialysis Care Experience instrument (Home-DCE) is a newly developed and content-valid PREM for use among patients treated with home dialysis modalities.  The survey instrument includes 26 core survey questions and 20 demographic questions, and is now available in English, Spanish, and French.  Domains of care assessed in the Home-DCE include staff education and patient-centered communication, care coordination, patient safety, concern and helpfulness of the care team, and staff care proficiency.  Worldwide use of the Home-DCE will allow incorporation of patients’ experiences and preferences in initiatives to enhance quality of care for home dialysis patients globally.  Translation and deployment of a PREM in additional languages should be done using established cultural adaptation methods, the gold standard for which is termed linguistic validation.  Translation and linguistic validation are hurdles to global use of the Home-DCE, but challenges that should be met to enhance home dialysis patients’ voice in clinical kidney care.