Background: Lack of healthcare access is a primary contributor to poor health outcomes. Literature regarding the experience of patients related to their own access to care is limited. Understanding the patient’s experience is important to informing patient-centered care.
Purpose/Specific Aims: The purpose of this project was to evaluate the experience and perception of patient’s health status, access to care and related needs.
Methods: This study used a mixed methods design involving a national survey distributed by snowball sampling. The survey focused on the evaluation of barriers to healthcare access, and perceptions about the participants health status. All individuals 18 years and above living in the United States were eligible to participate. A total of 150 individuals across 15 states participated.
Results: This study explored domains associated with access to care including affordability, accommodation, accessibility, acceptability, and availability. All areas were identified as being important to patients regardless of demographic backgrounds. No correlation was found between demographic factors and perceived importance of each domain, except for a higher perceived importance of accommodation among females (p= 0.00423). Accommodation and affordability were noted to be the most commonly cited barriers and were also the most common areas for which suggestions for improvement were provided.
Conclusion: Understanding patient perceptions of their own access to care is essential to understanding barriers, and potential solutions, to informing improvements in patient-centered care. Results from this study demonstrate that all domains of healthcare access are important to patients, and suggest the need for greatest improvement in the area of accommodation and affordability. Knowledge of patient perceptions and preferences are important to the success of future quality improvement efforts to enhance access to care and related outcomes.
