How did we do? Health PEI wants more feedback from patients

Health PEI is changing the way it gets feedback from patients in hopes of getting a higher response rate.

The agency will begin offering the surveys online as opposed to paper form, where patients filled it out and had to mail it back.

Marion Dowling, Health PEI's chief of nursing, allied health and patient experience, says it's an effort to see where acute care can improve, or offer congratulations where performance is good.

"Our goal is striving to be the top rating from our patients," she said in an interview on Mainstreet P.E.I.

Low response from paper surveys

Dowling said the response rate from the paper surveys was between two and 22 per cent.

Health PEI hopes to have at least a 30 per cent response rate through the online version.

Questions like how well you were treated by nurses, by physicians, by other staff, were you treated with courtesy and respect, were you listened to, did people explain things in a way that you could understand?— Marion Dowling, Health PEI

P.E.I. hospitals started collecting patients' email addresses over the past year so the survey could be sent to them.

Patients will be notified by email and regular mail when the surveys are ready to go.

'How well were you treated?'

The surveys, which will be sent out quarterly, include questions based on Health PEI's four principles of patient and family-centred care — information sharing, dignity and respect, collaboration and participation.

"Questions like how well you were treated by nurses, by physicians, by other staff, were you treated with courtesy and respect, were you listened to, did people explain things in a way that you could understand?" Dowling said.

The new survey was developed by the Canadian Institute for Health Information (CIHI), and will also help P.E.I. hospitals gauge how well they are doing compared to the rest of the country.

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With files from Mainstreet P.E.I.