Hear from patients: New Patient Experience Tool

Nov 5, 2019

Doctors and practice teams can now hear from their patients about their experiences and interactions with a family practice using the new GPSC Patient Experience Tool.

Early Results

6,000+ patient surveys have
been completed across 39
practices, participated by 
72 GPs, 69 MOAs, and 13 AHPs,
during the pilot phase.

Get started by completing
this online form.

Developed in partnership between physicians and the GPSC’s Practice Support Program (PSP), the tool is a tablet-based survey that asks patients about topics such as wait times, office hours, and coordination of care.

The patient voice can contribute to a family practice’s work to adopt attributes of a patient medical home and to determine readiness to participate in a primary care network.

Doctors can use the data to inform quality improvement activities in practices that aim to improve access to care, encourage longitudinal care, and support interdisciplinary teams.

Doctors can also opt to share aggregated data with their local division to help support community planning, identify local population needs, and understand the impact of local initiatives.

The survey includes six provincial questions, and practices can add more from a bank of questions.

Survey responses are accessible to practice team members in real-time using an easy-to-use, web-based dashboard. Click here for data privacy and sharing details.

Get involved

Practices interested in participating are encouraged to complete this online form.

Your time matters

Through PSP, participating
doctors and eligible team
members can each receive
compensation for up to
15 hours spent on a practice
improvement.

Doctors can also receive
up to 45 certified Mainpro+
credits (three credits per
hour, for up to 15 hours).

A PSP Regional Support Team (RST) member will be in contact to coordinate a time to deliver and set-up the tablet and survey. RST members can also support practices to:

  • Determine readiness and get started.
  • Select meaningful and relevant survey questions.
  • Incorporate the survey into clinic workflow, including determining team roles and responsibilities.
  • Review results and use data to identify, plan, implement and measure QI activities.
  • Help facilitate compensation and certification requirements.

Top 5 FAQs

1. How do patients get the survey?
Together with a PSP RST member, practices determine how to seamlessly incorporate the survey into daily workflows, including which practice team member gives the tablet to a patient to complete the survey.

2. How long can it take a patient to complete a survey?
The survey asks patients 14 to 20 questions, which can take about five minutes to complete.

3. Can a patient complete the survey more than once?
Yes. Practices may ask their patients to complete the survey more than once over time.

4. What happens after the patient submits their responses?
The information is collected and stored by a third-party vendor, Crede Technologies. Practices can access the anonymized, aggregated data in real-time on a secure web-based platform to inform quality improvement activities in the clinic. A PSP RST member is available to provide practice teams with regular in-practice support with accessing and using the data to inform practice improvements

5. If the data is available in real time, how does a patient keep his/her anonymity after completing the survey?
The secure platform automatically anonymizes and randomizes the responses upon receipt before the data is reported in the dashboard. A minimum of five responses for a question are required before results are accessible.