Patients at Winnipeg health-care facilities can now fill out a survey and, in certain cases, their issues could be resolved before they’ve even left the building.
The Winnipeg Regional Health Authority has launched a real-time survey for patients that’s meant to be concise and address complaints quickly.
It asks two questions: on a scale of 0 to 10, rate your overall experience, and whether you were treated with dignity and respect.
Respondents are then provided a box to add comments or suggestions.
The health authority guarantees a phone call to any patient who rates their overall experience below a six out of 10, and wants to talk, said Kerstin Jordan, the WRHA’s regional lead for quality, patient safety and accreditation.
“When people tell us things, they’re often in a place of distress, in a place of really wanting to know that their feedback mattered,” she said.
“The opportunity to hear from somebody who says, ‘I saw that you reached out to us and you wanted to talk more,’ and to get that response quickly is very meaningful.”
Lower scores prompt call
These patients will receive a phone call within 24 to 48 hours, Jordan said.
The early returns are encouraging for the WRHA, which makes the short-form survey, the first of its kind in Canada, available through QR codes scattered through the health-care facilities, as well as through paper copies.
Within the first three months in which patients could opt for a phone call, there were 100 conversations, and of those, around two per cent concerned possible patient safety events, where unintended harm to the patient may have occurred.
The new survey was launched in June 2022 as a pilot project. The phone call opt-in began in late 2023.
Jordan said client relations staff can intervene quickly around immediate issues, ranging from a patient falling to missed medication. In some cases, staff are interceding before a patient is discharged.
“We can go directly to that individual and talk to them about what’s concerning them.”
The health authority previously sent a long-form survey to some patients by mail, but it could take weeks for a finished survey to be returned.
“It doesn’t allow us to connect with people who want us to know things and want to know that we care — three months later is too long to get a response,” Jordan said.
While much public attention around the health-care system has focused on overwhelmed staff and long waits, the vast majority of the WRHA’s respondents had favourable impressions.
When asked about their overall experience, the average score is 8.8 out of 10, with 69 per cent of respondents scoring their experience a 9 out of 10 or higher, Jordan said. An average of 1,200 surveys are filled every month.
She attributes many high scores to the efforts of front-line staff.
“If people are kind and respectful, it makes a complete difference in how they perceive their overall care.”
WATCH | Winnipeg hospitals seek real-time feedback from patients:
The Winnipeg Regional Health Authority is now issuing short-form surveys that let patients raise issues even before they’ve been discharged from the health facility.
A number of patient complaints revolved around empathy for staff, but they still hoped for more time with medical professionals.
Based on survey feedback, Jordan said front-line staff have been encouraged to communicate with patients if they’re swamped, but also to promise to return to them.
“Those are the kinds of things we take away and focus on to improve our communication,” Jordan said.
Survey feedback has also led to additional parking for day patients at Riverview Health Centre and increasing physician availability at Pan Am Clinic, the WRHA said.
Susan Van Koughnet spent 14 years advocating for patients as a volunteer with the Manitoba Institute for Public Safety, a once-independent organization now operated by Shared Health, which oversees health-care delivery in the province.
She isn’t surprised most patients have generally positive experiences, even if they have complaints.
In February, Van Koughnet was taken to an emergency department for a heart attack scare. She waited nine hours for care, which was frustrating, but she gives the treatment rave reviews.
“I got the results that I wanted, I’m clearly happy,” she said, “but getting to that was a different story.”
Even still, she would have provided a good score in the WRHA’s survey, as a testament to the staff, Van Koughnet said.
She finds the short-form survey limiting.
“If you ask a blanket question, you’re only giving me one answer.”
The survey is now available at all WRHA’s hospitals, long-term care facilities and community health service areas.
The regional health authority plans to issue the survey by email and text message, but Jordan wouldn’t offer a timeline.
One barrier to offering more digital survey options is that a lot of medical records in the province are still handled by paper. The government has promised to transition the health-care system to electronic medical records.