Feasibility and acceptability of the brief patient-reported experience measure consideRATE within the hospital setting for patients with palliative care needs, their families/carers and clinicians.

Abstract

Supporting clinical teams to improve care for inpatients with palliative care needs and their carers is a known priority. Patient reported experience measures (PREMs) may assist in improvement work. Evidence about how to collect and feedback PREM data for this population and context is required. To determine the feasibility of implementing a brief, validated PREM, consideRATE and appraise its acceptability as perceived by inpatients with palliative care needs, their carers and clinicians. A prospective study using: 1) PREM administration, screening log and field note completion; and; 2) a focus group with clinicians. Eligible participants recruited from three wards (cancer care and internal medicine) of an Australian tertiary metropolitan hospital. Participants included patients screened to have palliative care needs (using the SPICTTM criteria), their carers and multidisciplinary clinicians (including clinical managers). Feasibility: A 71% response rate was achieved (n = 80 from 112 eligible patients approached). Mean screening time to inform eligible patients for PREM completion was 7.5 min. More than half of eligible participants (n = 47, 59%) opted for electronic completion of consideRATE and mean completion time was 6.12 min. A third of participants required assistance for PREM completion (n = 27, 34%). Score distribution varied across response options, albeit with a positive skew towards 'very good' and 'good'. Two thirds of respondents (n = 50, 62.5%) provided ⩾1 free-text response. Acceptability: Clinicians valued consideRATE data noting feedback needed to be: accessible, supported by free-text and responsive to local contexts. It is feasible to implement consideRATE for inpatients with palliative care needs. Clinicians note consideRATE data is acceptable in informing improvement foci.