Skip to main content

Main menu

  • Home
  • Content
    • Current issue
    • Past issues
    • Early releases
    • Collections
    • Sections
    • Blog
    • Infographics & illustrations
    • Podcasts
    • COVID-19 Articles
  • Authors
    • Overview for authors
    • Submission guidelines
    • Submit a manuscript
    • Forms
    • Editorial process
    • Editorial policies
    • Peer review process
    • Publication fees
    • Reprint requests
    • Open access
  • CMA Members
    • Overview for members
    • Earn CPD Credits
    • Print copies of CMAJ
  • Subscribers
    • General information
    • View prices
  • Alerts
    • Email alerts
    • RSS
  • JAMC
    • À propos
    • Numéro en cours
    • Archives
    • Sections
    • Abonnement
    • Alertes
    • Trousse média 2022
  • CMAJ JOURNALS
    • CMAJ Open
    • CJS
    • JAMC
    • JPN

User menu

Search

  • Advanced search
CMAJ
  • CMAJ JOURNALS
    • CMAJ Open
    • CJS
    • JAMC
    • JPN
CMAJ

Advanced Search

  • Home
  • Content
    • Current issue
    • Past issues
    • Early releases
    • Collections
    • Sections
    • Blog
    • Infographics & illustrations
    • Podcasts
    • COVID-19 Articles
  • Authors
    • Overview for authors
    • Submission guidelines
    • Submit a manuscript
    • Forms
    • Editorial process
    • Editorial policies
    • Peer review process
    • Publication fees
    • Reprint requests
    • Open access
  • CMA Members
    • Overview for members
    • Earn CPD Credits
    • Print copies of CMAJ
  • Subscribers
    • General information
    • View prices
  • Alerts
    • Email alerts
    • RSS
  • JAMC
    • À propos
    • Numéro en cours
    • Archives
    • Sections
    • Abonnement
    • Alertes
    • Trousse média 2022
  • Visit CMAJ on Facebook
  • Follow CMAJ on Twitter
  • Follow CMAJ on Pinterest
  • Follow CMAJ on Youtube
  • Follow CMAJ on Instagram
News

Survey aims to capture patient experience

Brian Owens
CMAJ December 08, 2015 187 (18) E507; DOI: https://doi.org/10.1503/cmaj.109-5172
Brian Owens
St. Stephen, NB
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
  • Article
  • Figures & Tables
  • Responses
  • Metrics
  • PDF
Loading

Patients who have spent time in hospital in Canada will soon be asked to rate their experience as part of an effort by the Canadian Institute of Health Information (CIHI) to document and improve patient care across Canada.

“CIHI has been really focused on health system performance reporting, and the kinds of things you need to measure in order to understand [it],” says Kira Leeb, CIHI’s director of health system performance. “Part of that is understanding the patient experience.”

Many health systems in Canada have been tracking patient experiences for years, but using myriad systems. In 2012, a group of health system administrators asked CIHI to develop a standardized pan-Canadian survey that would allow them to rate their performance against national benchmarks.

“Comparability is quite important when talking about performance,” says Leeb. “You need an objective way of measuring patients’ experiences.”

CIHI has developed a 49-question survey to evaluate all aspects of a patient’s experience in hospital, from their treatment by nurses and doctors, to the hospital environment, to how well their transition through the hospital was managed. Some of the questions were drawn from the US-based Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (HCAHPS) survey, with others reflecting aspects of care unique to Canada. The survey will be sent out to, or carried out by phone with, a representative sample of patients within a few weeks of their discharge from hospital. Their anonymized responses will feed back into a central CIHI database, allowing it to analyze the data at a population level.

The survey will help hospitals identify aspects of their patients’ experiences that require more work. If the results show a systemic problem with particular areas, such as discharges, they may also influence policy changes on a provincial or regional level. In addition, they can help identify how health outcomes and patient experiences relate to one another.

Figure

The Canadian Institute of Health Information is launching a pan-Canadian survey of patient care.

Image courtesy of Yarnica/iStock

“On an individual level, a patient could have a technically excellent health outcome but a poor hospital experience, or vice-versa,” says Leeb. “It’s helpful for hospitals to understand where that disconnect occurred.”

CIHI is finishing work on the database and expects to begin collecting information from across Canada later this fall.

Some health systems that took part in the pilot of the survey say they like it. Alberta Health Services (AHS), the first provincial health system to get involved, has been collecting data with the CIHI survey for about a year. Brandi McCormack, director of outcome measurement at AHS, says the health system has been collecting similar data provincially for sometime, using HCAHPS, but she finds it more useful to have a survey that is particular to Canada.

The survey provides AHS with data down to the level of individual hospital units, and is being used for quality assurance, to improve problem areas and to inform care. “It’s helpful for our focus on patient-oriented care to have patient experience data,” says McCormack.

The data is available to anyone in AHS, and McCormack says use of the information is just starting to ramp up, now that there is a full year’s worth available; more people are requesting access and help with interpreting the results.

“I think exciting things are coming with this data,” says McCormack. “It’s becoming more and more recognized how important the patient voice is.”

PreviousNext
Back to top

In this issue

Canadian Medical Association Journal: 187 (18)
CMAJ
Vol. 187, Issue 18
8 Dec 2015
  • Table of Contents
  • Index by author

Article tools

Respond to this article
Print
Download PDF
Article Alerts
To sign up for email alerts or to access your current email alerts, enter your email address below:
Email Article

Thank you for your interest in spreading the word on CMAJ.

NOTE: We only request your email address so that the person you are recommending the page to knows that you wanted them to see it, and that it is not junk mail. We do not capture any email address.

Enter multiple addresses on separate lines or separate them with commas.
Survey aims to capture patient experience
(Your Name) has sent you a message from CMAJ
(Your Name) thought you would like to see the CMAJ web site.
CAPTCHA
This question is for testing whether or not you are a human visitor and to prevent automated spam submissions.
Citation Tools
Survey aims to capture patient experience
Brian Owens
CMAJ Dec 2015, 187 (18) E507; DOI: 10.1503/cmaj.109-5172

Citation Manager Formats

  • BibTeX
  • Bookends
  • EasyBib
  • EndNote (tagged)
  • EndNote 8 (xml)
  • Medlars
  • Mendeley
  • Papers
  • RefWorks Tagged
  • Ref Manager
  • RIS
  • Zotero
‍ Request Permissions
Share
Survey aims to capture patient experience
Brian Owens
CMAJ Dec 2015, 187 (18) E507; DOI: 10.1503/cmaj.109-5172
Digg logo Reddit logo Twitter logo Facebook logo Google logo Mendeley logo
  • Tweet Widget
  • Facebook Like

Jump to section

  • Article
  • Figures & Tables
  • Responses
  • Metrics
  • PDF

Related Articles

  • No related articles found.
  • PubMed
  • Google Scholar

Cited By...

  • Is quality important to our patients? The relationship between surgical outcomes and patient satisfaction
  • Google Scholar

More in this TOC Section

  • What the U.S. overturning Roe v. Wade means for Canada
  • Is one-way masking enough?
  • XE, XD & XF: what to know about the Omicron hybrid variants
Show more News

Similar Articles

Collections

  • Topics
    • Health care coverage
    • Patient education

 

View Latest Classified Ads

Content

  • Current issue
  • Past issues
  • Collections
  • Sections
  • Blog
  • Podcasts
  • Alerts
  • RSS
  • Early releases

Information for

  • Advertisers
  • Authors
  • Reviewers
  • CMA Members
  • Media
  • Reprint requests
  • Subscribers

About

  • General Information
  • Journal staff
  • Editorial Board
  • Advisory Panels
  • Governance Council
  • Journal Oversight
  • Careers
  • Contact
  • Copyright and Permissions
  • Accessibiity
  • CMA Civility Standards
CMAJ Group

Copyright 2022, CMA Impact Inc. or its licensors. All rights reserved. ISSN 1488-2329 (e) 0820-3946 (p)

All editorial matter in CMAJ represents the opinions of the authors and not necessarily those of the Canadian Medical Association or its subsidiaries.

To receive any of these resources in an accessible format, please contact us at CMAJ Group, 500-1410 Blair Towers Place, Ottawa ON, K1J 9B9; p: 1-888-855-2555; e: cmajgroup@cmaj.ca

Powered by HighWire