Recent months have seen the fashion for smartphone applications, predominantly Iphone “Apps” to proliferate into temporary niche markets related to one-off tasks in running one’s life. Examples are applications provided by estate agents to view their current property portfolio. Some examples of these short-term use apps have appeared in healthcare settings to capture patient experience. Patients are handed a device and complete a survey during their time in the unit.
What benefit does this have?, well interest may be high in certain groups of patients, but a very skewed minority. Most patients are elderly and elderly people resist technology. Given the high volume of people using health services each day, it is easy to create an illusion of success by getting say 50 responses per day. A simple analysis of patient age quickly shows that this sample is a skewed fraction of patients and the aim of the survey is unmet.
This applies to other device based capture system – they will always be a minority sample limited by patient familiarity, number of devices, time to complete, staff time to manage and explain and conflicting priorities for staff and patients alike. That is not to say that such approaches are worthless, but their use must be matched to carefully segmented groups where device capture can excel. An example is long term conditions in younger people, such as asthma or diabetes where mobile phone based apps can be highly effective.One of the key success elements of these is that something is known about the person pushing the button.
Avoid superficial box ticking
The more you know about the diagnosis, treatment, services used and demographics of the respondent, the more useful the resuts are. This is the major failing in many experience and outcome capture systems, they are not linked to patient data in any way. Some recent developments attempt to address this by asking the patient for data items you already know such as How old are you? Which services did you use? The problem with this is that you quickly exhaust the patients attention by wasting their time completing categorical information before you get to the meat of the survey.
The ideal is to drive survey content by the systems which already have this data recorded, even the most basic patient administration systems can do this. This has the benefit of generating bespoke surveys at the time, where the content is matched to the individual, so every question is relevant to them. The advantage is that results are no longer superficial.
No Burden
CoMetrica has developed such a service for organisations which is fully managed so all the measurement is carried out by CoMetrica and the healthcare organisation can focus on the results. The difference is, you no longer get a superficial sample, you get detailed responses from most patients. CoMetrica aims to get responses from the majority all patients going through each service. The results are then really powerful, detailed and have the benefit of continuity. For more information, see examples at http://www.cometrica.co.uk/ or contact Stuart Mathieson by email: Stuart.Mathieson@CoMetrica.co.uk
This article by Stuart Mathieson compares the different measurement models currently available in the market and highlights the shortcomings and advantages many have found with particular routes. With NHS guidance emphasising the need for "near real time" measurement, it is easy to to think that getting patients to answer a few questions on a touch screen device will meet all your needs. However, the very patients who you most need to listen to are the ones least likely to use such devices and you could be left with a small skewed sample of patients answering a few superficial questions. 
This applies to other device based capture system – they will always be a minority sample limited by patient familiarity, number of devices, time to complete, staff time to manage and explain and conflicting priorities for staff and patients alike. That is not to say that such approaches are worthless, but their use must be matched to carefully segmented groups where device capture can excel. An example is long term conditions in younger people, such as asthma or diabetes where mobile phone based apps can be highly effective.One of the key success elements of these is that something is known about the person pushing the button. 
