Impact of a program to provide patients with comparative information about providers of durable medical equipment for home respiratory care.

BACKGROUND How patients are informed regarding their choices of durable medical equipment (DME) providers for home-going respiratory equipment may affect their decisions about which vendor to use. When a new enhanced information program to inform home-going patients about all available respiratory DME providers was implemented, we hypothesized that patients' utilization of providers would change and that satisfaction with service would be enhanced. METHODS The enhanced information program consisted of offering detailed descriptions of the many available providers to home-going patients. To characterize available providers, we administered a questionnaire to all respiratory DME providers listed in our area. We assembled information about the scope of services, the number and types of providers, the geographic range of service, and the providers' contact information, on a 1-page information sheet about the DME providers, which was given to all home-going patients. Case managers, who routinely help patients make such DME arrangements, were oriented about the questionnaire and given the information sheets to distribute. The study compared responses from Medicare insurees prescribed to receive home-going respiratory care equipment on discharge from The Cleveland Clinic Hospital during the periods before and after implementing the enhanced information program. Consecutive eligible patients in the before and after groups were called by two of the study investigators (ERH, DAM), at least 2 weeks after discharge, and, on their granting consent, were asked to complete a telephone survey. RESULTS Responses were available from 75 patients in each group. Both before and after implementing the enhanced information program, patients' satisfaction with their respiratory DME service providers' services was high. The number of providers selected increased after the program from 12 to 18, and though the differences between the before and after scores were not statistically significant, there was a trend toward prompter visits to patients in their homes by DME-provider respiratory therapists. CONCLUSIONS The enhanced information program was associated with a larger number of DME providers being selected, with preservation of a high level of patient satisfaction with DME services. The trend toward prompter respiratory therapists' visits to the home and better availability of oxygen canisters for at-home patients suggested benefits from the enhanced information program.