Retrieval of Economic Incentives and Information on Quality-of-care Indicators in Primary Care

Background

Primary care serves as the first point of contact for patients within the healthcare system, addressing key health issues through preventive, curative, and rehabilitative services. Economic incentives, such as pay-for-performance (P4P) schemes, aim to align healthcare professionals' objectives with those of health providers and society by rewarding the achievement of quality-of-care targets. In many cases, P4P is implemented alongside information provision, as seen in the UK's Quality and Outcomes Framework (QOF), where public reporting of quality indicators adds a reputational incentive. However, the interaction between financial and non-financial incentives remains complex, and their long-term effects on quality-of-care continue to be debated.

In Catalonia, the Catalan Institute of Health (ICS) has implemented a quality improvement system since 2006, using the Quality Standard of Care (EQA) framework, which includes 118 evidence-based indicators. This system combines real-time performance feedback through an online platform (information provision) with financial incentives linked to achieving specific targets. While the approach has been well established, many incentivized indicators have plateaued in performance, raising questions about the added value of financial incentives beyond information provision alone in such situations. This study aims to evaluate the impact of removing economic incentives or information on selected EQA indicators, assessing effects by indicator type and exploring interactions between related indicators. The findings will provide crucial insights to optimize incentive strategies and improve healthcare quality in Catalonia.

Aims

General aim: To study the impact of removing economic incentives and/or information provision on quality-of-care indicators among primary care professionals.

Specific aims:

1. To analyze the effect of removing a financial incentive from an indicator: to provide evidence on what happens when points from a quality-of-care indicator linked to the Catalan Health Institute's (ICS) Direcció per Objectius (DPO) are removed, meaning that a specific indicator or a set of indicators for a clinical condition is no longer financially incentivized.
2. To analyze the effect of partially removing information from an indicator: to assess the additional impact of withdrawing part of the information related to a specific indicator or a set of indicators for a particular condition.
3. To analyze the effects of objectives 1 and 2 based on indicator type: to evaluate whether the observed effects differ according to certain characteristics of the indicators: (a) indicators that have had consistently high results for years (plateaued) and have high clinical relevance; (b) indicators primarily related to data recording; (c) sets of indicators associated with a specific condition.
4. To assess potential spillover effects on other indicators: to determine whether removing incentives and/or information from an indicator affects other indicators related to the same clinical condition that remain incentivized and publicly reported.
5. To evaluate changes in professionals' recording patterns: to determine whether the presence or absence of financial incentives for indicators leads to changes in the way healthcare professionals record data.

Study design

A cluster-randomized clinical trial without blinding. The study will include the following groups (further detail provided in the Arms and Interventions section):

• Control Group: No changes in the information and incentive scheme.
• Intervention 1: Removal of the financial incentive for a selected set of indicators.
• Intervention 2: Removal of the same financial incentives as in Intervention 1, along with the removal of related information in the online platform for professionals (numeric result of the indicator, 12-month evolution lineplot, number of patients not fulfilling the indicator criteria, degree of accomplishment of the indicator in relation to specific goals using a traffic light color coding)

Study Period and Duration

The study will take place from February 2025 to December 2025. Weekly monitoring of the primary outcome variable will be conducted, with interim analyses at 3, 6, and 9 months.

Setting and Target Population

The study will be conducted in primary care practices (PCPs) of the Catalan Health Institute (ICS). To minimize interference from territorial management incentives and encourage participation, the trial will be carried out in three regional health management areas: Catalunya Central, Penedès and Girona. These regions were selected after discussions with their management teams and agreement on the study's implementation.

The trial will be conducted at the level of individual healthcare professionals (family physicians and nurses). However, randomization will be performed at the PCP level, ensuring that all professionals within the same PCP are assigned to the same arm of the study.

Statistical analysis

The analysis will be conducted at both the individual professional and EAP levels and will include all professionals from both intervention and control EAPs, regardless of whether they have used clinical decision support tools (SISAP web and/or patient lists). The analysis will follow an intention-to-treat (ITT) approach.

First, a descriptive analysis will be performed to assess the characteristics of each group, ensuring balance across different EAP and professional-level characteristics. Balance will be evaluated using the standardized mean difference (SMD), where an SMD > 0.1 will indicate imbalance.

The primary analysis will be focused on the effect of incentive and information withdrawal. The effect of removing financial incentives and removing both incentives and information will be analyzed using mixed-effects models, which account for intra-cluster variability and EAP-level clustering effects. A linear mixed-effects model will be used, considering both fixed and random effects. Fixed effects will include the intervention and any imbalanced covariates (based on SMD > 0.1). Random effects will account for variability within clusters (EAPs). Results will be reported as effect estimates with 95% confidence intervals (CI95%). In addition to the above, pre-post models will also be conducted to compare current vs. past performance for the same indicators.These analyses will be conducted at 3, 6, 9, and 12 months.

To assess for changes in documentation patterns (objective #5), the study will compare the distribution of systolic (SBP) and diastolic blood pressure (DBP) values recorded for patients included in blood pressure-related indicators across control and intervention groups. The descriptive statistics mean ± standard deviation (SD) and median ± interquartile range (IQR) will be reported. T-tests will be used to compare mean differences between groups.

ANOVA followed by Tukey's post-hoc test will be used for multiple comparisons. If normality or homoscedasticity assumptions are violated, non-parametric tests will be applied instead. Statistical significance (α = 0.05) will be adjusted for multiple comparisons to control for Type I errors.

Informed consent

The regional and PCP management teams have the authority to decide which indicators contribute to the P4P scheme for each professional. This system allows a certain flexibility in awarding economic incentives for professionals. Given this framework, individual informed consent from professionals is not deemed necessary. However, the study will be presented to the directors of the participating PCPs and their agreement to participate in the study will be collected with study participation acceptance forms. These stakeholders will be fully informed about the study, including the fact that their professionals will be enrolled in a randomized clinical trial, and that professionals in the intervention groups (where some indicators have their points removed) will not experience any financial penalty. As a secondary validation, professionals will implicitly confirm their consent when signing their P4P scheme agreements. If any professional disagrees with their P4P scheme, they will be excluded from the study, and no intervention will be applied to them.