The New Brunswick Health Council (NBHC) is undertaking its first Care Experience Survey in New Brunswick’s 19 acute care hospitals.
 

The survey is designed to measure several factors on the quality of the services delivered during the overall stay, from admission to discharge, from the patient`s point of view. The results of the survey will be used to help plan health services in the future and also provide decision-makers and planners with key benchmarks to potentially flag gaps in service and highlight successes. Only selected hospitalized patients between November 1, 2009 and January 31, 2010 will be invited to participate in the survey.   

“The Care Experience Survey is one of the key tools contributing to our overall mandate of ensuring New Brunswickers are the focus of the health-care system. It will join other tools we are using toward understanding the health system for New Brunswickers,” says NBHC CEO Stéphane Robichaud. “This is the first of three surveys, with the goal of targeting the whole system in a few years. These surveys will each be repeated on a three-year cycle. New Brunswickers can expect to see the results of the first Care Experience Survey in June, 2010.”
 

The NBHC determines key things, such as the quality of care New Brunswickers are receiving with the health system, the health status of New Brunswickers, and recommending what changes may be made. The NBHC does this through surveys, research, stakeholder input and by engaging New Brunswickers.

 

This survey will evaluate the quality of hospital care provided to New Brunswick patients. This survey is your opportunity to share your views on your recent hospital stay. The results will help improve patient care in New Brunswick hospitals.

 

The New Brunswick Health Council is an independent organization that evaluates New Brunswick’s health service quality by measuring population satisfaction. The Patient Care Experience Survey is being conducted by Ipsos Reid, an independent research company, on behalf of the New Brunswick Health Council and the regional health authorities in New Brunswick.
 

All medical and surgical patients discharged from acute-care hospital facilities in New Brunswick between November 1^st, 2009 and January 31^st, 2010 may be selected to participate in this survey. Not all patients will be selected to participate, those who are will be selected at random (like flipping a coin) and invited to participate in the survey about their recent hospital stay.
 

4. How will I know if I’ve been selected?
Patients selected to participate in the mail-out survey will receive a personalized letter and a survey questionnaire from the New Brunswick Health Council sometime between mid-January 2010 and the end of March 2010.   The survey can be completed at home and returned directly to Ipsos Reid using the postage-paid return envelope provided. Ipsos Reid is the research company hired to conduct the Patient Care Experience Survey on behalf of the New Brunswick Health Council.

5. What kind of questions does the survey ask?
The survey will ask questions about your recent hospital stay and the care you received from the nurses and doctors while in hospital. As well, there are a few questions that ask about you personally and your experiences while in hospital.
 

Your feedback is appreciated, and we do hope you will take a few moments to fill out the survey. It may take you about 25 minutes to complete the full survey. Your experiences will help us evaluate the performance of the hospitals within New Brunswick’s health care system. 

 

Your answers will help identify what is being done well and what could be better. The responses from the survey will be analyzed to learn more about the experiences of hospital patients. Based on the survey results, the New Brunswick Health Council and your regional health authority will continue to develop strategies for improving the quality of care.

 

8. What if I don’t want to participate? 

The survey is completely voluntary, and your feedback is appreciated.

We do hope you will take a few moments and fill out the survey. Your experiences will help us evaluate the performance of the health care system. Your health region, doctor, and hospital will not find out if you choose to complete or not complete a survey. If you want to remove your name from the mailing list, please call the toll-free number 1-888-346-6454. You will be asked to provide your name, address, and the hospital in which you were a patient. We need your full name and address because there may be more than one patient with the same name.
 

We have taken all the necessary steps to ensure that all patient information is protected and secure. A very small number of staff will have access to the information, and they are all bound by formal confidentiality agreements. We chose to work with Ipsos Reid, the company we hired to do the survey, because of their experience in conducting surveys in the field of health care for organizations across Canada and internationally. Ipsos Reid has previous experience of dealing with confidential health care information.

 

10. If I participate, is my information confidential and private?
Yes, your response to the survey will be completely confidential and you will not be identified in any way. In order to track patient care experience by hospital however, your survey will have a tracking number that will be used only to associate your survey to a particular hospital facility.

11. I want to complete a survey – what if I don’t receive one? 

Unfortunately, only a sample of randomly chosen patients will receive the survey (like flipping a coin). In order to have the most accurate results, we need to use this survey method. The New Brunswick Health Council is committed to actively engaging patients in quality improvement. Even if you do not have a chance to participate in this project, there will be other opportunities for you to make a difference in the health care system.

 

12. Will the results of the Patient Care Experience Survey be available to the public?
Yes, in late June, 2010, the results will be published on the New Brunswick Health Council’ website and you will be able to see how each hospital in the province was rated by patients like yourself.