MEASURING PATIENT EXPERIENCE OF ORAL HEALTH CARE: A CALL TO ACTION

Abstract

Surveys to measure patients' experiences of health care are common practice in general medical care to improve patient centered care. However, such questionnaires are not consistently used to capture the patient's experience of oral health care. Because patient experience is an important component of oral health care, there is an urgent need to measure it in the oral health care setting. The purpose of this article is to illustrate the need for patient experience measurement in oral health care, highlight the challenges such measurement in this setting faces, and provide a set of next steps to advance care experience measurement for dental patients. We conducted a comprehensive review of the literature examining patient experience measurement in medical and oral health care. This focused on studies aimed at understanding the current measurement landscape and existing measurement tools. We also gathered additional information and perspectives through discussions with key informants and stakeholders. There is a critical need for patient experience measurement in oral health care. To develop a program to measure patient experiences of oral care, the following should be done: (1) convene stakeholders and get their buy-in; (2) develop a patient experiences of oral health conceptual framework; (3) develop a survey tool that captures key aspects of patient experiences of oral health; (4) pilot the survey tool; (5) assess the survey tool...s psychometric properties; and (6) refine and finalize the survey tool. To advance the measurement of the quality of oral health care, we outline a stepwise methodology that captures dental patient experiences of oral health care.