Outcome
By completing step 1.1 you will have a written statement of the problem(s) you think AHPEQS can help your organisation to solve, and why it is a suitable method for solving the problem. You are making an argument for why you will use AHPEQS and not some other patient experience survey, and this could be used as part of your business case
Things to consider
This section lists the items that need to be considered in Step 1.1 to specify why and how you want to use AHPEQS in your organisation.
Audit of current activity
It could be helpful to start with an audit of your organisation’s current activities in collecting patient feedback.
- How do these existing activities currently feed into your work on, for example, quality improvement, patient-centred care, accreditation? How would AHPEQS fit into this picture? What gaps can it fill and what processes or reports can it inform? How can it complement or feed into other activities?
- If you already use a patient experience survey, what aspects of patients’ experiences do you currently measure, and how do these compare to the AHPEQS concepts? Will AHPEQS be used as a replacement for existing tools or as an add-on module?
The context for AHPEQS implementation
Organisations implementing AHPEQS may or may not have existing survey programs, and may or may not have control over whether AHPEQS is administered to their patients. This affects the type of rationale you develop for using AHPEQS in your organisation.
Three example scenarios, and how these might affect your business case for adopting AHPEQS, are considered below.
- If you have been told you must implement AHPEQS in your organisation, or that AHPEQS will be administered to your patients by another organisation or authority
- note the rationale given to you for choosing AHPEQS by your head office or regional authority and think about what else you can get out of the implementation for your own organisation’s benefit, so that the resulting data does not just disappear ‘up the line’ without you making meaningful use of it locally
- If you are already using a patient experience survey in your organisation and switching to AHPEQS or adding AHPEQS to your existing survey
- consider the implications of the change (cost, concepts measured, change in mode of administration, change in presentation of results)
- consider how this will affect current reporting of patient experience and what changes will flow through from ‘board to ward’
- consider how you could use this opportunity to improve how your organisation engages with consumers and collects and uses patient experience information. What benefits or features does AHPEQS have compared to your old survey and how can you take advantage of these?
- If you do not have an existing patient survey
- consider how the results of AHPEQS could fill gaps in your organisation’s knowledge about the quality and person-centeredness of its care, and how AHPEQS might complement other types of information your organisation collects to monitor and improve quality and safety.