PEMBROKE –Pembroke Regional Hospital would like to thank all those who provided feedback on their hospital experiences and their perceptions of the hospital as part of the community surveys completed this past summer and fall.
Close to 1,000 residents, representing a cross-section of people from across the Upper Ottawa Valley, took part in community-based street surveys, focus groups, online surveys, and personal interviews.
“One of our main goals is to continuously improve the patient and family experience at the hospital,” said PRH President and CEO Pierre Noel. “We regularly survey patients, but going out into the community with street surveys, focus groups and personal interviews was new to us and helps us to ensure that we are targeting the right areas for improvement and responding to what people are saying is important to them.”
Mr. Noel said that some very helpful feedback was received, as well as some validation that the key areas currently being focused on for improvement are also those that were identified as a priority by the public.
Generally, the feedback confirmed there were few if any concerns with the quality of the care provided at PRH, however, some people did comment on inconsistencies in their overall experience depending on whether they used the services in an urgent situation or came in for a less urgent need.
“Clearly, when someone comes to our hospital in urgent need of care this is provided in a timely way with a great deal of skill and compassion,” he said. “However, in less urgent cases, people have commented that the wait times were sometimes longer than they had hoped and there are sometimes some frustrations that come to the surface as a result.”
The surveys also suggested that more can be done to improve patient privacy throughout the organization, the patient experience in terms of communication and interactions, and to better identify members of the healthcare team.
In terms of next steps, all of the feedback will be reviewed and analyzed by the teams working on improvement opportunities in the various areas within the hospital.
“Over the past five years or so we have developed a very high-functioning Lean process improvement approach across the hospital,” Mr. Noel said, “and all of this feedback will help our teams direct their energy towards areas of improvement that matter most to the community.”
“By talking to patients and their families, it was very clear that people are passionate about their local hospital and we want people to know that we are always listening to their concerns and suggestions for improvement and that we act on them,” he added.
For those wishing to read a summary of the themes from the surveys, an executive summary of the findings can be found on the PRH website at www.pembrokeregionalhospital.ca.
