Building quality report cards for geriatric care in The Netherlands: using concept mapping to identify the appropriate "building blocks" from the consumer's perspective.

PURPOSE: This article reports on a study to identify "building blocks" for quality report cards for geriatric care. Its aim is to present (a) the results of the study and (b) the innovative step-by-step approach that was developed to arrive at these results. DESIGN AND METHODS: We used Concept Mapping/Structured Conceptualization to define the building blocks. Applied to this study, we carried out Concept Mapping using several data collection methods: (a) a Web search, (b) semistructured interviews, (c) document analysis, (d) questionnaires, and (e) focus groups.
RESULTS: The findings showed that, although home care and institutional care for elderly adults share many quality themes, experts need to develop separate quality report cards for the two types of geriatric care. Home care consumers attach more value to the availability, continuity, and reliability of care, whereas consumers of institutional care value privacy, respect, and autonomy most. This study also showed, unlike many other quality report card studies, that consumers want information on structure, process and outcome indicators, and rating outcome indicators such as effectiveness and safety of care both for home care and for institutional care. Concept Mapping proved to be a valuable method for developing quality report cards in health care. IMPLICATIONS: Building blocks were delivered for two quality report cards for geriatric care and will be used when quality report cards are built in The Netherlands. For the U.S. context, this study shows that current national report cards for geriatric care should be supplemented with quality-of-life data.