A recent study from the RAND Corporation found a troubling decrease in patient experience across hospitals in the United States during the COVID-19 pandemic. The study, published in JAMA Health Forum, indicated this decline has been uniform across regions with minimal variation, according to an Aug. 25 news release.
“This unprecedented decline in patient experience was seen in every region of the United States, with relatively little regional variation,” Marc Elliott, the study's lead author and a senior principal researcher at RAND, said in the release. “Hospitals with higher staffing levels and better overall pre-pandemic quality were more resilient and slower to see their decline. But eventually even their patients also reported worse experiences.”
By the end of the fourth quarter in 2021, a summary measure of patient experience was down by 3.6 percentage points across all hospitals, compared to what would have been anticipated without the pandemic's influence, the RAND release reported.
According to the report, specific aspects of the hospital experience that took the hardest hits were staff responsiveness and cleanliness. Moderate declines were observed in overall hospital ratings and recommendations, as well as communications about medicines, with nurses, doctors and in-care transitions.
The study indicated that, although the overall hospital rating and recommendation measures saw slower declines initially, they eventually caught up, the release reported.
"This pattern suggests that global ratings alone do not fully capture changes in specific patient experiences, nor do they identify the areas in need of improvement, especially in the face of unusual events such as a pandemic," Elliot added, according to the release.
The study's findings have far-reaching consequences for healthcare providers and policymakers. As the healthcare system continues to navigate the challenges of the ongoing pandemic, the data may prompt significant reviews in hospital staffing, cleanliness protocols and overall patient-care strategies, the release said.
