Penn State Health’s patient-centered quality metric reframing project may serve as a model for presenting future quality metrics

Patient-oriented quality metrics enhance provider and staff engagement

2025-09-22

(Press-News.org) Innovations in Primary Care

Penn State Health’s Patient-Centered Quality Metric Reframing Project May Serve as a Model for Presenting Future Quality Metrics

Quality metrics aim to improve patient outcomes by setting evidence-based targets, but many are neither patient centered nor physician centered. A team at Penn State Health’s Department of Family and Community Medicine ran a project across 13 ambulatory clinics to make quality data more meaningful by presenting patient-oriented outcomes in plain, natural language. Using 24 months of electronic health record data, they paired measured outcomes with Number Needed to Treat (NNT)–based estimates to translate care delivered into likely patient results, such as, “you avoided four strokes for patients with heart disease by prescribing statins, for example.” They produced one-page summaries, emailed clinic-level and provider-level reports, and displayed office posters, then surveyed recipients. Among 119 respondents, most said the reports were clear (85%) and relevant (77%); many felt the format strengthened their sense of impact compared with standard metrics (61%), increased motivation (59%), and would improve how they review traditional measures (50%). About half wanted clearer explanations of how the numbers were calculated, pointing to a need for more transparency.

Permanent link: Patient-Oriented Quality Metrics Enhance Provider and Staff Engagement

Daniel Schlegel, MD, MHA, DABFM, FAAFP, et al

Penn State Health & Penn State College of Medicine, Hershey, Pennsylvania

END

ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:

Adding pharmacy technicians to primary care teams helps manage medication access

2025-09-22

Original Research Adding Pharmacy Technicians to Primary Care Teams Helps Manage Medication Access Background and Goal: This study examined whether adding pharmacy technicians to primary care teams relieved clinicians and nurses of medication-access tasks and improved perceptions of burden, quality of care and patient access. Study Approach: Researchers conducted a retrospective, mixed-methods study one year after deploying five primary care pharmacy technicians across 11 clinics in a large urban safety-net network. They analyzed electronic ...

High educational debt and long work hours are associated with burnout symptoms in early-career family physicians

2025-09-22

Original Research High Educational Debt and Long Work Hours Are Associated With Burnout Symptoms in Early-Career Family Physicians Background and Goal: This study examined whether higher educational debt among physicians is associated with more hours worked per week and whether both are independently associated with burnout symptoms among early-career family physicians. Study Approach: Researchers linked the American Board of Family Medicine Initial Certification Questionnaire (2017 to 2020) to its National Graduate Survey ...

CHART guideline provides 12 key reporting items for AI chatbot health advice studies

2025-09-22

Special Report CHART Guideline Provides 12 Key Reporting Items for AI Chatbot Health Advice Studies Background and Goal: In response to the growing need for reporting standards for evaluating artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot health advice studies for clinical purposes, researchers created the Chatbot Assessment Reporting Tool (CHART) so stakeholders can interpret results with confidence. Key Insights: CHART was developed through a systematic review; a Delphi consensus process (a series of anonymous expert surveys to build agreement) with 531 international stakeholders; and three consensus meetings with a 48-member expert panel. The CHART statement ...

George Mason public health researchers enter new phase of NIH funded research on child health

2025-09-22

Scientists, nurses, and researchers in George Mason University’s College of Public Health (CPH) have successfully progressed to the third phase of a National Institutes of Health (NIH) program studying a broad range of early life exposures on child health. The NIH grant provides more than $157 million in awards for Environmental Influences on Child Health Outcomes (ECHO), and George Mason will receive $1.35 million annually until 2030 to conduct the study. George Mason is one of 45 research sites across the country gathering longitudinal data on more than 30,000 children; 1,059 of those children are enrolled in George Mason’s ...

Heatwaves in US rivers increasing up to four times faster than air heatwaves

2025-09-22

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — As the frequency and intensity of heatwaves increase across the U.S., a similar but more striking phenomenon is occurring in American rivers. Analysis of data from nearly 1,500 sites in the contiguous United States between 1980 and 2022 revealed that heatwaves in rivers are accelerating faster than and lasting nearly twice as long air heatwaves, according to a new study by researchers at Penn State. “Rivers are often thought of as safe and cool havens protected from extreme temperatures,” said Li ...

Dried fish – the hidden superfood vital for millions of women and children in Africa

2025-09-22

STRICTLY EMBARGOED UNTIL 8PM UK TIME (3PM EASTERN TIME) ON MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 22 Hidden in plain sight, dried fish are an overlooked yet vital nutrient-packed superfood helping to feed millions of people across Africa, a new study reveals. And new evidence quantifies for the first time the essential nutrients in sun-dried and smoked fish in Africa, suggesting they could play an important role in tackling malnutrition across the tropics – provided the right policies are in place, researchers argue. Dried fish are an affordable and readily available food across the tropics. Yet despite this prevalence, because they are often ...

Research shows there are no easy fixes to political hatred

2025-09-22

Tune into American politics today, and you'll hear something far more sinister than simple disagreement. The language has escalated: political parties trash talk each other—blaming rival parties for policy failures or even for causing incidents with national implications. And reducing polarization and "partisan animosity"—the distrust and hatred of the other party—is remarkably difficult, according to a new study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences evaluating past attempts. The research was led by the Polarization ...

A recipe from two eras: How conifers ward off their enemies

2025-09-22

To the point: Conifers use resin to protect themselves against pests. This resin contains diterpenes, which are defensive substances. Some of these diterpenes originated over 300 million years ago, before conifers evolved. Other diterpenes developed independently in different conifer species much later, presumably to protect against bark beetles. This repeated evolution was only possible because enzymes that produce diterpenes had previously undergone changes that unlocked evolutionary pathways towards certain substances. This is based on a mechanism called “epistasis”, which allows new traits to evolve once preparatory ...

An important signaling system for developing social skills

2025-09-22

Endocannabinoids are similar to the cannabinoids present in cannabis, but they are found naturally in the body. Endocannabinoids—and cannabinoids—work through a signaling system that supports neurodevelopment, but whether manipulating this system prenatally has long-lasting effects remains unclear. In a new JNeurosci paper, researchers led by Ismael Galve-Roperh, from the Complutense University of Madrid, used mice to explore this unknown. The researchers decreased expression of an endocannabinoid receptor in the prefrontal cortex of prenatal mice and assessed the impact of this manipulation on gene expression, ...

How the brain responds to bullying

2025-09-22

In a collaboration between Turun yliopisto and the University of Turku, researchers led by Birgitta Paranko and Lauri Nummenmaa explored the immediate effects of bullying on the brain. As reported in their JNeurosci paper, the researchers measured neural and attentional responses while tweens (aged 11 to 14) and adults watched first-person videos of either people being bullied or more positive social interactions. For participants of all ages, bullying triggered distressful alarm states, activating social and emotional brain networks as well as autonomic threat response systems. Measuring eye-tracking responses and pupil sizes in a separate group of adults during video viewing supported ...

Penn State Health’s patient-centered quality metric reframing project may serve as a model for presenting future quality metrics

ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:

LAST 30 PRESS RELEASES: