PhD defence A.C. (Aline) Stolk-Vos

In evaluating the quality of healthcare, each stakeholder, or stakeholder group will have his/her own perspective on what constitutes quality. These different perspectives have led to a plethora of indicators that consequently cause great variety in rankings of healthcare quality. This problem with defining “the best quality” holds true for many areas in healthcare, including ophthalmic care. Therefore, the aim of this thesis is to identify various perspectives on quality of care in ophthalmology by systematically addressing commonalities and differences among the perspectives of patients and other stakeholders. It showed that patients attach much value to process indicators in addition to the more commonly considered clinical outcomes and patient-reported outcomes. Furthermore, it showed that stakeholders agreed on the set of dimensions that constitute cataract care quality and  that the these dimensions share a common core between countries. Although need to be complemented with different country-specific measures for effective local application. This thesis showed that simple rankings are of limited value when it comes to judging hospitals. They do not represent the views of any stakeholder or subset of stakeholders and therefore are better abandoned. Especially the poor representation of the patient perspective stands in sharp contrast with the global advancements on patient-centeredness. When truly aspiring to put the patient at the center of healthcare, the patient perspectives should take the central place in healthcare quality frameworks.

The PhD defences will not take place publicly in the usual way. A live stream link has been provided to candidate. The ceremony will begin exactly at 10:30.