Why do I need this document?
To be able to undergo continuous quality improvement, you need to know where you need to improve. You may think you know what your participant’s want and think of your service and/or where your energy is best placed for improvement, but the best way to be sure is to ask your participants. Collecting this information will also help you to demonstrate if you are doing what you say you are doing and if your participants are satisfied with the service they are receiving.
This activity is a chance to strengthen your business by ensuring you are delivering what your participants and NDIS really want.
AHPA recommends the use of valid and reliable measures wherever possible. There are many Patient Reported Experience Measures (PREMs) available in the literature. You need to choose PREMs which are appropriate for the services you provide, the types of participants you engage with and can be administered in a manner which works for you and your participants.
Where a suitable PREM is not available or possible you may wish to conduct a participant survey to seek feedback and inform your quality improvement activities.
Before collecting feedback via survey methods, always ensure the participant has provided consent to participate in such an activity and that they understand they may be contacted by a third party to complete a questionnaire.
Why the auditors like it
They can see your participants:
- Felt they were treated with dignity and respect
- Felt their privacy and confidentiality was respected
- Were involved in setting their goals
- Were involved in planning their services
- Felt the services you provided helped them achieve their goals
- Knew how to voice a concern or make a complaint and felt comfortable to do so.
Next steps
- ACCESS A VALID AND RELIABLE EXPERIENCE MEASURE relevant to your service if possible
- Some professional associations have begun assisting members with this task by facilitating a profession wide service that provides the survey, survey provision and data collection and results analysis, see this example by the Australian Orthotic and Prosthetic Association
- Or use the previously provided survey and instructions attached below
- IMPLEMENT: When implementing the survey to gain feedback you should consider:
- Which participants you will ask and when
- If you are a sole trader or small practice (2-3 allied health professionals (AHPs)), we suggest you survey at least 10 participants before your first audit
- If you have a larger business, say 6 AHPs, we suggest you do at least 30 surveys before your first audit
- Make sure you interview participants across your team of providers to identify if a particular provider gets better results than another
- Ask as many participants as you can over time and target all areas of your service
- Best practice involves asking participants to answer the questions alone and anonymously, if a person needs to ask the participant the questions, make sure that person is someone who has NOT provided the services in question so they feel comfortable to provide honest feedback.
If you can’t facilitate an anonymous option for completion, consider using a third person who is not connected to your service to undertake the survey, for example, talk to a colleague and offer to undertake their survey in return for them doing yours.
- How you will collate the results in an efficient manner to enable you to collect more results over time, analyse the data and use the results in a meaningful way to inform your opportunities for improvement.
- Once you have analysed the results make time to CELEBRATE good results and/or BRAINSTORM with your team on how to improve
- DETERMINE follow up action required and document it has been completed
- Ensure you have a process in place for ongoing/ periodic data collection in the same way over time so you can compare results and see if your changes have had the positive impact intended and whether participant’s have noticed.
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