JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

Background:

In health systems, feedback is pervasive and is widely considered to be essential for learning that drives improvement. Clinical quality dashboards are one widely deployed approach to delivering feedback, but engagement with these systems is commonly low, reflecting a limited understanding of how to improve the effectiveness of feedback about health care. When coaches and facilitators deliver feedback for improving performance, they aim to be responsive to the recipient’s motivations, information needs, and preferences. However, such functionality is largely missing from dashboards and feedback reports. Precision feedback is the delivery of high-value, motivating performance information that is prioritized based on its motivational potential for a specific recipient, including their needs and preferences. Anesthesia care offers a clinical domain with high-quality performance data and an abundance of evidence-based quality metrics.

Objective:

The objective of this study is to explore anesthesia provider preferences for precision feedback.

Methods:

We developed a test set of precision feedback messages with balanced characteristics across 4 performance scenarios. We created an experimental design to expose participants to contrasting message versions and elicited their preferences through analysis of the content of preferred messages. Participants rated their perceived benefit of preferred messages to clinical practice on a 5-point Likert scale.

Results:

Preferences were diverse across participants, but largely consistent within participants. Ratings of participants’ perceived benefit to clinical practice for preferred messages were high (M=4.27, SD = 0.77).

Conclusions:

Healthcare professionals exhibited diverse yet internally consistent preferences for precision feedback across a set of performance scenarios, while also giving messages high ratings of perceived benefit. A one-size-fits-most approach to performance feedback delivery would not appear to satisfy these preferences. Precision feedback is a theory-informed approach to prioritizing performance information, based on its motivational potential for a specific recipient. We anticipate that precision feedback systems may hold potential to improve the effectiveness of feedback interventions through the satisfaction of diverse and consistent provider preferences for motivating performance information.