The Private Healthcare Information Network (PHIN) is exploring ways of contextualising data around practitioner’s performance.
Responding to a question raised on the second day of Health & Protection’s Health Summit at Tylney Hall in Hampshire today, PHIN chief executive Dr Ian Gargan revealed contextualisation of doctor performance data was something the organisation is trying to figure out.
“If we published all of the data today like a league table within schools, the patient would just look at what’s the outcome of the mortality of this doctor on this slide and they would say that particular doctor doesn’t have the outcome I want to have,” Gargan said.
“But that doctor might have dedicated their life to really complex cases like gynaecological surgery which is very, very difficult.
“However, I’ve done wrists and knees – it’s pretty rudimentary and fairly simple so my mortality would be pretty low whereas someone dealing with cancer surgery, the mortality would be very high.”
Emphasising the low level of national literacy, Gargan (pictured) noted that it was vital to make the data as accessibile as possible.
“Literacy in this country is nine years of age, so healthcare literacy is probably about 12, so how do we make it simpler? Make it more palatable?” he said.
“If it’s easy to understand, make it even easier to understand.
“So if we put all of the data out there as it is, it wouldn’t be helpful and what we’re trying to figure out is how we contextualise that data so that we’re educating the public in the right way.”