Different patient group, different ranking? Which quality of care aspects are important for Dutch patients with hip- or knee arthroplasty when choosing a hospital?

Background: The emphasis on transparency and consumer choice in health care has resulted in a large amount of comparative health-care information on the Internet. To create manageable information, insight is needed into which quality of care aspects are most important for patients when choosing a health-care provider. We explored which aspects patients with hip or knee arthroplasty find most important when choosing a hospital and whether patient subgroups differ in this respect. Method: Of the 265 patients who underwent a hip- or knee arthroplasty or who were on a waiting list, 110 (42%) indicated the importance of quality of care aspects when choosing a hospital. They had to rank quality indicators based on patients’ experiences, performance indicators derived from the hospitals and indicators on hospital services. Results: Concerning indicators on patients’ experiences, conduct of the doctor was rated most important (M= 3.8) followed by pain control (M= 2.5), conduct of nurses (M= 2.4) and information on new medication (M= 1.3). Availability of a guideline to prevent negative consequences of thrombosis was the most important performance indicator (M= 4.6) and whether surgeons were specialized in certain operations was the most important service indicator (M= 5.5). Rankings differed slightly between patient subgroups. For instance, men found it more important whether they received information on new medication than women (P < 0.05). Conclusions: Our results provide more insight into patients’ priorities when choosing a hospital and how these priorities differ between patient subgroups. Given the need of manageable health-care information, the results can be used to decide which quality of care aspects should be presented in succinct overviews on the Internet