Patient experience as an indicator of clinical quality in emergency care

Abstract

Purpose – There is growing focus on the importance of attending to “patient experience” in delivery of health services, and the design of clinical quality indicators. “Patient experience” (also termed “user experience”) has been augmented by “staff” and “carer” experience in the “service experience” quality indicator for emergency care in England. But “patient experience” is a contested concept which patients, clinicians, politicians, managers and academics view differently. Design/methodology/approach – The purpose of this paper is to examine approaches to thinking about patient experience. The author describes three key approaches to conceptualising patient experience and identify their philosophical origins, then asks what aspects of patient experience ought to be treated as key to measuring the quality of emergency care. The discussion is illustrated with extracts from a patient interview describing emergency care following placental abruption.The author demonstrates that differing purposes and differ...