Quality of Care for Parkinson's Disease Patients in the VA System
Author Information
Author(s): Kari Swarztrauber, Eric Graf, Eric Cheng
Primary Institution: Providence Health System, Newberg, Oregon, USA
Hypothesis
How closely do care practices for Parkinson's disease patients align with evidence-based quality indicators?
Conclusion
The study found low adherence rates for annual depression and fall screenings among Parkinson's disease patients, but reasonable adherence for managing urinary incontinence.
Supporting Evidence
- Only 16.6% of patients received annual depression screening.
- 23.4% of patients were adherent to annual fall screening.
- 67.3% of patients received appropriate management for urinary incontinence.
- Patients receiving specialty care had higher adherence for fall screening but lower for urinary incontinence management.
- Patients with outside care had better adherence rates for depression and fall screenings.
Takeaway
Doctors are not checking for depression and falls in Parkinson's patients as often as they should, but they are doing a better job managing incontinence.
Methodology
A review of 350 patient charts from the Pacific Northwest Veterans Health Administration was conducted to evaluate adherence to five quality of care indicators.
Potential Biases
Potential bias due to the familiarity of raters with the abstraction instrument.
Limitations
Some care indicators had too few instances recorded to reliably report management, and results may not be generalizable outside the Pacific Northwest VA system.
Participant Demographics
Patients included were primarily veterans with a diagnosis of idiopathic Parkinson's disease.
Statistical Information
Confidence Interval
95% CI: 1.2–4.2
Statistical Significance
p<0.05
Digital Object Identifier (DOI)
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