Patient participation standard

PP8 – Engaging consumers

Standards for general practices (6th edition)
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      9. PP8 – Engaging consumers

PP8 | Engaging consumers

Consumer expectation statement: I expect that this practice engages consumers in a proactive, ongoing and meaningful way to gain feedback on their experiences, and uses these insights to improve care.

 

PP8.A The practice engages with consumers to monitor, review and improve care.

The practice:

  • engages with consumers to improve care using formal and informal engagement
  • informs consumers about how it has responded to feedback and used feedback to improve care.


Engaging consumers in a proactive, ongoing and meaningful way to gain insights and feedback on consumer experience is linked with increased clinical effectiveness, improved patient safety, improved adherence to medication and more use of screening services(37).


Engaging consumers refers to consumers (of a healthcare system) working collaboratively with health professionals or health service providers/organisations with the aim of ensuring that the care being received meets those consumers’ needs and is safe and of high quality(38). As engaging consumers requires an ongoing relationship that allows for both planned and opportunistic engagement, it implies two-way communication between parties.


There are various levels of engagement and different approaches that can be used to actively engage consumers in healthcare. Engagement approaches can be formal or informal.

Formal engagement occurs when the practice has a structured and planned process that:

  • seeks direct input from consumers or consumer representatives
  • requires input from consumers at specific times
  • uses a combination of in-person and digital interactions(39).

Informal engagement uses instances of opportunistic engagement, and is a more fluid and flexible process that:

  • seeks wide input from consumers
  • allows for consumer input at any time
  • may be online and digital in nature and, where this is the case, may be captured through digital analytics(39).

Consumers can provide valuable insights about the practice, and a practice can use various methods to collect data relating to consumer outcomes and experiences to help make ongoing improvements to services.

Patient-reported measures (PRMs) are measurement tools used to collect information about patients’ healthcare experiences and the outcomes of their care(40). PRMs can be used to collect data across the care continuum, including general practices. There are standardised and validated tools to measure PRMs that specifically focus on either:

  • patient-reported experience measures (PREMs) that capture the patient’s perception of their experience with healthcare or services; or
  • patient-reported outcome measures (PROMs) that help patients to report on outcomes relating to their health.

PROMs capture patient perspectives about how illness or care impacts their health and wellbeing without interpretation of that perspective by a healthcare provider(41). Insights from PROMs can be used to glean broader insights into health outcomes across the practice population if integrated with relevant clinical information(42).

The Australian Commission on Safety and Quality in Health Care has:

  • evidence relating to the use of PROMs
  • resources and information on the selection, use and implementation of validated PROMs
  • consumer information and case studies of successful implementation.

Table 7 outlines formal approaches practices could take to engage consumers(43).

Table 7 Mechanisms to formally engage consumer in general practice

Consumer Engagement Mechanism Examples of consumer engagement with a general practice
Inform
  • Social media and online platforms
  • Receipt of health information, practice news and results from consumer feedback via newsletters, emails and other media.
Consult
  • Focus groups
  • Patient journey mapping
  • Follow up calls
  • Workshops and community events
  • Yarning circles for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander consumers
  • Use of technology for real-time feedback
  • Suggestion boxes
Involve
  • Collect PREMs and PROMs
  • Speak on relevant topics at events conducted by the practice
  • Participate in practice meetings about quality improvement activities or consumer feedback
  • Review practice materials or resources (for example, factsheets and website copy) with a consumer lens
Collaborate
  • Sit on consumer advisory councils
  • Sit on quality improvement committees
Empower
  • Be involved in the governance of the practice


After collecting and analysing feedback, the practice can identify key issues and decide on a quality improvement plan. To do this, the practice could:

  • convene a team meeting dedicated to this activity
  • seek team members’ opinions on the priority of the activities that will address the feedback
  • send each team member a summary of the feedback and ask for their thoughts on which quality improvement activities the practice could implement
  • consider which feedback aligns with the practice’s strategic objectives
  • create specific action plans to address areas for improvement raised by consumers
  • plan annual processes, such as flu vaccination, based on previous year’s consumer feedback
  • introduce a new service or healthcare provider or make other changes (for example, changes to reception, opening hours and/or days) based on consumer feedback and needs.

This could be done as part of the practice’s continuous quality improvement activities in CQI1 – Continuous quality improvement activities.

Because consumers value knowing that their feedback has been respectfully considered and implemented where possible, inform them of the quality improvement activities that the practice has implemented, or is planning to implement. For example, the practice could display posters in the waiting area, include relevant information on the practice’s website or in its newsletter. If the practice has received a lot of feedback relating to a particular issue and it is not feasible to make changes, explain this to consumers.

 
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