HQCA Announces Winners of Its Inaugural Patient Experience Awards

CALGARY, AB--(Marketwired - June 07, 2016) - The Health Quality Council of Alberta (HQCA) launched its inaugural Patient Experience Awards in 2016 to recognize healthcare professionals who work tirelessly to make improvements to the patient, client, or resident experience.

The awards, which were open for submission throughout April, received an overwhelming response and highlighted the remarkable work that is underway in the many sectors of healthcare in all areas of the province.

"We received an overwhelming response and are tremendously impressed by the volume of work being done in the province to improve the patient experience," says Board Chair, Dr. Tony Fields.

With nearly 50 initiatives submitted that focused on improving overall healthcare experiences, four teams were selected to receive awards based on their demonstration of incorporating the patient voice in the planning, implementation, and evaluation of an initiative that was focused on improving the patient experience in their care setting. These programs are:

Community Paramedic In-Home Blood Transfusion Program
AHS EMS - Calgary Zone Community Paramedic Program

• A program that delivers blood transfusions to medically fragile patients in their homes. For the patient, this eliminates travel and time spent in the hospital.

FibroFOCUS: A Comprehensive Multidisciplinary Fibromyalgia Treatment Program
Calgary Chronic Pain Centre

• A Multidisciplinary Fibromyalgia Treatment Program at the Calgary Chronic Pain Centre. From nutrition and sleep strategies to yoga and tai chi, patients are empowered to self-manage pain, increase functioning, and achieve wellness.

Peer Support Neuroscience
Foothills Medical Centre Neuroscience Peer Support Programs

• A program (stroke, brain injury, and spinal cord injury) set-up to introduce current patients and their support systems to Patient Experience Liaisons, past patients and family members, that can provide support, hope, understanding, compassion, and learned wisdom after facing similar challenges.

Stroke Support Team (Medicine Hat & Area)
Medicine Hat Regional Hospital and community

• A community program providing in-home therapy by a transdisciplinary healthcare team working together with stroke clients in their recovery -- developing one plan of care, driven by the client, to reduce their length of stay in hospital and their wait-time to continue rehabilitation.

"These awards allow us to celebrate and recognize the many people who are doing great work to make real differences to the patient experience," Dr. Fields adds.

"I was pleased to take part in this awards program because we wanted to shine a light on the amazing work that healthcare professionals are doing on the front lines to improve patient care; this was evidenced by the large number of submissions," says Shelley Krook, a member of the HQCA's Patient/Family Safety Advisory Panel and a co-lead to the awards program. "We hope this will encourage even more work in this area and the sharing of existing practices that make the patient experience even a little bit better."

The Patient Experience Awards program was established by the HQCA and its Patient/Family Safety Advisory Panel to recognize and celebrate initiatives that improve the patient, client, or resident experience in accessing and receiving healthcare services. The selected winners were a demonstration of innovative patient focused work that is truly making a difference to the patients they serve.

The winning teams will receive funding for a patient experience, quality, or patient safety education event and will have the opportunity to share more about their program through a public webcast on June 17 at 12 p.m. MST. Individuals who want to view the webcast may register by emailing Claudia.Gonzalez@hqca.ca.

The Health Quality Council of Alberta is a provincial agency that pursues opportunities to improve patient safety and health service quality for Albertans. It gathers and analyzes information and collaborates with patients, Alberta Health, Alberta Health Services, health professions, academia and other stakeholders to drive actionable improvement to health service quality and patient safety in the healthcare system.