US Health Care Quality Remained ‘Largely Flat’

Over the last decade, the US quality of outpatient care shows no significant change despite all the government efforts and encouragement to improve the quality of care it currently delivers.

In a statement released via email, the Lead Study Author Dr. David Levine of Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard University in Boston said, “overall, the quality of outpatient care has remained largely flat; there are some areas of improvement, but we also see areas of decline,”

“The take-home for patients: there is likely recommended care that you are not receiving but should, and there is likely extra care that you are receiving and could be harmful to you,” He added.

According to the survey conducted by Levine and his fellow worker from nationally representative sample of patients, clinicians, hospitals, pharmacists and employers gathered from 2002 to 2013.

Every year, the survey has more or less 21,000 to 27,000 people.

Based on JAMA Internal Medicine research study, the number of patients receiving recommended medical care increased from 36% to 42%. For example, more patients received treatments needed for conditions like high blood pressure, elevated cholesterol, asthma and heart failure.

On the other hand, the ratio of patients who needs counseling for weight loss, exercise and smoking cessation grew from 43% to 50%. Furthermore, the number of patients recommended for cancer screenings spiked from 73% to 75% and avoidance of inappropriate cancer screenings increased from 47% to 51%.

Meanwhile, Patients’ satisfaction improved, 77% of patients participated in giving a high rank for their care experience while the ratio of participants giving a high rating for physician communication jumped from 55% to 63%, then high marks for access to care rose from 48% to 58%.

Still, some other measures got worse

The number of cases when patients avoided inappropriate medical care such as opioids for headaches or MRIs for back pain went down from 92% to 89%. Skipping unnecessary antibiotic use for things like the flu or acute bronchitis dropped from 50% to 44%.

Studies show, most Americans are more prone to sickness, get older, less white but get more educated on average. Adult Americans also became less interested in smoking and most likely to live with multiple chronic diseases.

In a statement authors said, ‘One limitation of the study is that the quality measures included don’t address all outpatient care’,

“The quality assessment in the study also doesn’t account for how easy or difficult it may be to achieve certain measures, making it impossible to say how care for heart disease may have changed relative to treatment for diabetes” authors added.

While Elizabeth McGlynn, author of an accompanying editorial and vice president at Kaiser Permanente Research in Pasadena, California said, “Even so, the findings add to a growing body of evidence suggesting there’s room for outpatient care in the U.S. to improve.”

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