By Angela Hill

ER survey coming to Prince Albert

Jan 17, 2011 | 5:21 AM

People receiving care in the emergency room at Victoria Hospital could be asked to fill out a survey starting Tuesday.

“We’re certainly wanting to hear more from the voice of the customer, which are our patients that come in, and we certainly do our best to meet the customer’s needs, but we certainly appreciate the feedback because it really helps us plan and improve the way we are delivering services now,” said Sharon Griffin, director of acute care services.

The survey is being performed by the Health Quality Council in 14 emergency departments across Saskatchewan as part of the preliminary information gathering to establish a baseline. The full study will begin by late 2011.

Health regions have been using data from previous health council studies and wanted information specific to their emergency rooms, said Nicole Wohlgemuth, program director Saskatchewan’s Health Quality Council

“They actually requested that we focus on emergency department patient experience, as our next survey to roll out,” she said.

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Once the information is collected it is compiled into a report, which is then given to health regions to take to boards and management, Wohlgemuth said. From there it is used to set priority areas.

“We’ll use this to give us the evidence to start improvement projects if they are needed,” she said.

This is part of a new trend to get patients feedback.

“The health system in Saskatchewan is really starting to encourage patient’s participation in making improvements,” Wohlgemuth said.

“I wouldn’t say it’s overdue, I would say the health system in Saskatchewan has been working on making improvements across the entire health system and the emergency department is just another area that it’s now time to have time to focus on.”

According to Griffin, it is good to have an objective outside agency collecting the information because of their experience with previous surveys and program design.

ahill@panow.com