Real-time tracking of patients’ experience in an acute rehabilitative hospital setting in the delivery of person-centred care

Abstract

Purpose: This study explored how real-time tracking of patients’ experiences in a rehabilitation hospital can be used by healthcare professionals to improve the delivery of Person-Centred Care to patients. Design: A qualitative research methodology was adopted, whereby the phenomenological qualitative tradition was applied with an interpretivist epistemological approach, to conduct a case study of how Real-Time Experience Tracking can be used to improve the delivery of Person-Centred Care in the chosen hospital. Real-time data on patients’ experiences was collected and subsequently used to stimulate discussions during several interviews that were held with various healthcare non-managerial and managerial professionals at the rehabilitation hospital. Findings: Several themes emerged on each of the three pillars of Person-Centred Care and on the use and acceptance of Real-Time Experience Tracking by patients and healthcare professionals. The relatively innovative method of collecting data on patients’ experiences in real-time was generally accepted by both patients and healthcare professionals. Additionally, Real-Time Experience Tracking can be used to improve the delivery of Person-centred Care by promptly highlighting weaknesses on each of the three pillars of Person-centred Care, for the consideration of healthcare professionals. Conclusion: Collecting real-time data on patients’ experiences can improve healthcare professionals’ understanding of patients’ experiences and thus enable them to adjust their treatment plans and delivery in time to improve patients’ experiences. Questions on which real-time data are collected need to be carefully aligned with the three pillars of Person-centred Care. Real-time data can also enable the hospital to measure the quality of Person-centred Care and continuously improve the care provided to the current needs of its patients, rather than sticking with standard procedures. Practical limitations to improving Person-centred Care with Real-Time Experience Tracking include preserving patient anonymity and lack of time and resources. Healthcare institutions should evaluate how the recommendations being made in this study can enable them to track their patients’ experiences in real-time to improve the delivery of Person-Centred Care for the same patients. Value: Several recommendations on how Real-Time Experience Tracking can be implemented to improve the delivery of Person-Centred Care were proposed. These recommendations were based on findings from interviews held with various healthcare professionals working at the rehabilitation hospital. Healthcare institutions should consider developing an application to collect data in real-time on patients’ experiences and analyse it to assist healthcare professionals to improve the delivery of Person-Centred Care.