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Physicians’ Views On Quality Of Care: A Five-Country Comparison
Interest is resurging in the problems relating to the quality of patient care. This paper provides a comparative perspective on this issue from a five-country physician survey conducted in Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the United States in 2000. Physicians in all five countries reported a recent decline in quality of care and concerns with how hospitals address medical errors. Physicians in four countries expressed serious concerns about shortages of medical specialists and inadequate facilities. U.S. physicians reported problems caused by patients’ inability to pay for prescription drugs and medical care. Asked about efforts to improve quality of care in the future, physicians indicated support for electronic medical records, electronic prescribing, and initiatives to reduce medical errors.
Physicians have a different level of experience than the general public does with their health care systems and how recent policy changes affect their ability to provide high-quality patient care. In this paper we present the results of the third Commonwealth Fund International Health Policy survey, developed by the Harvard School of Public Health, the Commonwealth Fund, and Harris Interactive.1 It reports the assessments of physicians in five countries of their nation’s overall health care system performance and provides an in-depth look at the daily realities physicians face when caring for their patients. Survey methods. We surveyed 517 physicians in Australia, 533 in Canada, 493 in New Zealand, 500 in the United Kingdom, and 528 in the United States. To obtain a comparable representation of both generalist and specialist physicians, the sample was stratified into two categories: generalist physicians (general practitioners and primary care physicians) and a sample of medical specialists, limited to cardiologists, gastroenterologists, and oncologists. Approximately 400 randomly selected generalist physicians and 100 specialist physicians were interviewed in each country. This ratio of generalists to specialists is the norm found in four of the countries. Only in the United States are medical specialists found in a higher proportion to generalists. The physicians were selected from lists of practicing physicians in each country that were available through private or government sources. The surveys were conducted by a combination of mail, telephone, and Internet by Harris Interactive in the United States and their subcontractors in the other four countries. The surveys used a single questionnaire administered to physicians in all five countries. Interviews were conducted during the period 27 April–27 July 2000. Samples of 500 respondents are associated with sampling errors of approximately ±4 percent. Sources of nonsampling error include potential nonresponse bias, question wording and ordering effects, and cross-cultural differences in question interpretation. To interpret the results, exhibits include t-tests for statistical differences in responses, with each country compared to the United States as a reference group. Variations in responses by generalists and medical specialists in each country were not included in the text because they were found statistically insignificant in most cases. Differences of standard practice in each country for measuring and reporting sample disposition and response rate information make the publication of one common response rate infeasible.2
Views on quality of care. Across all five countries, physicians expressed concern that quality of care has deteriorated (Exhibit 1  ). More than half of all physicians in the United States, Canada, and New Zealand, as well as 38 percent of doctors in Australia and 48 percent in the United Kingdom, felt that their ability to deliver high-quality care has decreased over the past five years. Only one-quarter or fewer of the physicians in any country felt that it has improved.
A similar trend can be seen in physicians’ views of medical care in the future. Two-thirds of Canadian physicians and around half of U.S. and New Zealand physicians were very concerned that the quality of patient care will decline in the future. In addition, 75 percent of Canadian physicians thought that in the future, patients will have to wait longer than they should to get medical treatment; only in the United States did fewer than half of physicians hold the same opinion.
Concerns about hospital care.
In all five countries many physicians gave low marks for the jobs their hospitals do in finding and addressing medical errors. They also reported that their hospitals discouraged them from reporting or did not encourage them to report medical errors. (Exhibit 2
In all five countries a majority of physicians rated hospital nurse staffing levels negatively. Eighty-four percent of U.K. physicians rated nursing staff levels as fair or poor, as did 53–72 percent of physicians in the other four countries (Exhibit 2  ). Also, a substantial number of physicians expressed concerns about the adequacy of emergency room (ER) facilities. In Canada and the United Kingdom nearly half of physicians rated the adequacy of their hospitals’ ERs as fair or poor.
Resources.
In four of the five countries, physicians reported major shortages of resources in areas important to quality of care. Only in the United States were shortages not seen as a significant problem, with the exception that U.S. doctors shared other physicians’ belief that there are inadequate numbers of nurses in the hospitals where they practice or to which they admit a majority of their patients (Exhibit 3
More than half of physicians in Australia, Canada, and the United Kingdom reported a shortage of home care, compared with 24 percent of U.S. doctors. Likewise, more than 70 percent of physicians in Australia, Canada, and the United Kingdom reported shortages of long-term care and rehabilitation facilities (versus 35 percent in the United States). In Canada and the United Kingdom more than 60 percent of physicians reported community shortages of medical specialists; only 13 percent of U.S. physicians did so.
Waiting times.
The survey also asked about quality-of-care problems in the physicians’ own medical practices. Waiting times for care emerged as a key concern among physicians in all countries but the United States (Exhibit 3 To probe for comparisons of waiting times, the survey included two profiles of patients in need of medical procedures and asked physicians how long such a patient would typically wait for care in their country. When asked about waiting times for a breast biopsy for a woman with an ill-defined mass but not adenopathy, more than eight of ten physicians in the United States (85 percent), the United Kingdom (83 percent), and Australia (82 percent) said that this patient would get a breast biopsy within two weeks, versus 58 percent in Canada and 62 percent in New Zealand. Nearly four in ten physicians in Canada and New Zealand said that women with this condition would have to wait more than three weeks; this figure was just 8 percent in the United States. When physicians were asked about another more elective procedure, hip replacement, the gap between the other four countries and the United States widened. The survey found that 93 percent and 92 percent of New Zealand and U.K. physicians, respectively, and 60 percent and 70 percent of Canadian and Australian doctors, respectively, said that a sixty-five-year-old patient who required a routine hip replacement would have to wait more than six months, compared with 1 percent of U.S. physicians. For this procedure, the United States is unique in that 51 percent of U.S. doctors reported that their patients would wait less than one week for a hip replacement operation. Other limits on care. There were two other areas in which the United States was found to be unusual in physicians’ reports of practice problems. Nearly half (48 percent) of U.S. physicians reported that patients’ not being able to afford necessary prescription drugs was a major problem in their medical practice. This problem was named by only 10 percent of U.K. and Australian doctors. More than a third of U.S. physicians said that external review by outside groups for clinical decisions to control costs was a major problem for their medical practices. U.S. physicians also led the other countries in the proportion of physicians reporting limitations on the medications they could prescribe. Physicians in all five countries expressed concerns about not having enough time with patients, with a third or more saying that this is a major problem for their practice. U.K. physicians appeared to be particularly concerned, with 62 percent reporting this as a major problem.
Patients’ problems.
When asked about problems patients encounter when seeking care, the U.S. and New Zealand health care systems stand out for physicians’ reports of financial burdens on patients and the problems patients face paying medical bills. While U.S. physicians did not report shortages or long waiting times and were generally satisfied with hospital resources, they expressed general concerns about their patients’ ability to pay for care and prescription drugs (Exhibit 4
Physicians were also concerned that their patients lack access to preventive care. Although access to the latest drugs is being discussed in all five countries, only in New Zealand did a majority of physicians report that patients often lack access to the newest drugs and medical technology (Exhibit 4 ).
Improving quality of care.
Physicians in all five countries favor reforms that would allow them to spend more time with their patients, improve patients’ access to specialized medical care, provide improved systems for reducing medical errors, improve nursing or home care follow-up after discharge, allow for better access to preventive care, and further patient education (Exhibit 5
In addition to these more basic approaches to improving quality of care, physicians were queried about other system changes that might improve the quality of care in their countries. Improved use of new information technologies emerged as one strategy. Asked about current use of electronic medical records or electronic prescribing systems, a minority of physicians (17–24 percent) in the United States, Canada, and Australia (three countries reporting frequent use) said that these systems were often used by physicians in their countries. Physicians in the United Kingdom and New Zealand were more likely to indicate current use of such systems, with a surprising majority of generalists in both countries saying that such systems were often used (59 percent and 52 percent, respectively), although only a minority of specialists agreed (22 percent and 14 percent, respectively).
Across the five countries, nearly half of physicians (66 percent in the United Kingdom) thought that electronic records would be "very useful" if put in place (Exhibit 5
In addition, a large majority of physicians in all five countries favored releasing information to the general public about the quality of care provided by hospitals (Exhibit 5 Satisfaction with the health care system and medical practice. Despite the problems they see with their own health care systems, physicians in all five countries are more satisfied than the public is with their health care systems overall. They also reported satisfaction with their medical practices, although many were concerned about their ability to keep up with developments in medical practice.
The study used a measure of physician satisfaction with health system performance that has been used in prior surveys of both the general public and physicians. Physicians’ views were slightly more negative in the United States than in the other four countries (Exhibit 6
Along with these findings, physicians in all five countries reported that they were relatively satisfied with their medical practices, even in the face of constraints on their practices. About two thirds of New Zealand (63 percent) and U.S. (68 percent) physicians said that they were very or somewhat satisfied with their current medical practice, as did more than seven of ten physicians in the United Kingdom (72 percent), Australia (72 percent), and Canada (71 percent). However, in none of the five countries did the majority of physicians report that they were "very" satisfied with their medical practice (only 21 percent in Australia, 18 percent in Canada, 12 percent in New Zealand, 14 percent in the United Kingdom, and 18 percent in the United States). Physicians also expressed concerns about their ability to remain knowledgeable and to keep up with the latest developments in medicine. Only a minority of physicians in all five countries (ranging from 33 percent in the United States to 15 percent in New Zealand) reported that they were very satisfied with their ability to keep pace in their profession.
The findings of this five-country survey are stark. Despite increased national spending on health care in each of the five countries and substantial improvements in medical technology, practicing physicians believe that the quality of care provided to their patients is deteriorating. To physicians in these countries, efforts to constrain health care costs are seen as being harmful to patient care. National health systems, often described by experts as efficient and well run, are seen by their own practicing physicians as plagued with shortages of health professionals and inadequate facilities and equipment. Canadian and U.K. physicians expressed the most concern. Of particular note, physicians in all five countries were concerned with a serious shortage of nurses or specialized medical care, or both. Despite some similarities with the other four countries, the situation for health care in the United States is the exception. Physicians saw problems caused by patients’ inability to pay for needed care. They worried about patients’ going without prescription medications and without other medical care because of their inability to pay for care, rather than overall resource shortages. They also reported having the problem of third-party external review bodies interfering with their ability to provide needed care. Physicians in all five countries reported a concern that not enough is being done to address the problems of hospital medical errors, an issue gaining visibility in the United States.4 The agreement on a shortage of nurses is also striking. This survey finds physicians reporting a serious nursing shortage in all of the English-speaking countries, a situation that seems to have escaped the notice of many of these countries’ leaders. Basic issues dominate reporting of quality concerns. Unfortunately, for policymakers, many of these issues can be addressed only by providing more resources to health care in some of the countries surveyed, particularly for hospitals, or to expand insurance coverage more broadly in the United States and provide more comprehensive benefits in New Zealand. Yet physicians also endorse efforts that would provide new information resources to help them improve quality of care in their practices. In all five countries, computer and Internet revolutions are sweeping into the world of medicine. Physicians place a high priority on using these tools more effectively to prescribe drugs and monitor medical record information. Although these efforts did not have the same level of salience as did reform ideas for increasing resources for care, physicians’ positive support for such measures is notable. It is important to note that cost containment policies by either governments or private managed care plans are not invisible to practicing physicians. Many see these activities as a direct threat to their patients. Those involved with constraining health expenditures must provide more convincing evidence that limiting resources can still lead to better quality of care. It is striking that physicians in five different health systems feel that their country is headed in the wrong direction on this issue.
Bob Blendon, Karen Donelan, Catherine DesRoches, and Kimberly Scoles are with the Harvard School of Public Health. Cathy Schoen, Robin Osborn, and Karen Davis are with the Commonwealth Fund. Katherine Binns and Kinga Zapert are with Harris Interactive. An earlier version of this paper was presented at the Commonwealth Fund International Symposium on Health Care Policy, "Quality and Innovation: Issues, Strategies, and Implications for Policy," in Washington, D.C., 11–13 October 2000.
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Survey Findings
Summary And Policy Implications
