The CIGNA Health Care Quality Improvement and Patient Satisfaction Project

Abstract

OBJECTIVE: To institute a program at CIGNA HealthCare (CHC) of Kansas Missouri to improve the quality of drug therapy for patients discharged from acute care hospitals in the Kansas City area. METHODOLOGY: CHC plan offices sent a survey to plan patients (or their representatives) who were dismissed from two metropolitan Kansas City hospitals within a 180-day period. The two network hospitals chosen had the greatest percentage of CHC plan admissions in the Kansas City area. The survey probed for problems recipients may have experienced while trying to obtain discharge medications from CIGNA participating pharmacies. In addition to the survey of the dismissed patients, charts were reviewed to determine congruency between the drugs prescribed at discharge for this sample of patients and the prescriptions actually filled. RESULTS: CHC plan patients dismissed with nonformulary drug prescriptions did not have a significantly different overall pharmacy satisfaction rate from the entire group as a whole. The vast majority of discharge prescriptions were filled in plan pharmacies. However, the major finding was that there was dissatisfaction with segments of the panel of pharmacy providers. Patients were dissatisfied with pharmacy personnel in the open panel of plan pharmacies, not with the CHC pharmacy benefit overall. CONCLUSION: This study was used as a quality improvement/preventive health activity component of a National Committee for Quality Assurance accreditation site visit. The study assessed patient satisfaction with care, and implemented an intervention to determine if care could be improved.