3008. SHEP: Driving Quality Improvement with Patient Centered Data
Steven M Wright, PhD, Office of Quality and Performance / PACE, VA Headquarters, J Schaefer, Office of Quality and Performance / PACE, VA Headquarters

Workshop Objectives: The Survey of Health Experience of Veterans (SHEP) is a patient-centered initiative by the Office of Quality and Performance to assess satisfaction, functional status, and health behavior information from veterans who obtain care in the VHA. An unparalleled ~600,000 surveys are administered in the outpatient and inpatient setting each year. Response rates exceed 70 percent for ambulatory care. Data have been collected and reported every quarter since January 2002 and are the bases for patient-centered performance measurement in the VHA.

Workshop Activities: The purpose of the workshop will be to inform participants of: 1)SHEP methodology including sampling, integration with EPRP data, response and population weighting, and survey administration 2)Key survey metrics for satisfaction (Picker measures), self-reported health status, functional status (SF12) and health behaviors (tobacco and alcohol) 3)Metrics for extensive inventory of patient demographic (e.g., age, gender, race priority status, employment), patient attributes (e.g., prior utilization, regular doctor status, non-VA care), and clinical attributes (diagnostic cohort, number of dx, chronic pain), 4)Seminal findings for overall quality, patient satisfaction, functional status and health behaviors 5)Architecture for SHEP data warehouse and dynamic web-based reporting 6)Data Use Protocol for accessing all OQP databases

Audience Familiarity: This is a database with a large volume of cases, extensive inventory of patient attributes, robust measurement of quality and satisfaction, complement of functional status and health behavior information, and ability to link to other corporate databases. It offers unmatched opportunities for health services researchers interested in studying veterans care from the patient-centered perspective.