Authors (including presenting author) :
Yu PK (1), Leung SH (1), Ko SH (1), Li YC (1)
Affiliation :
(1) Family Medicine and General Out-patient Clinic, Kowloon Central Cluster
Introduction :
Introduction
Obtaining feedback from patients and relatives is an effective way to achieve quality patient-centered care. Complaints and feedbacks serve as useful indicators of patient satisfaction. All of them are regarded as an opportunity to improve primary care service in HA, rendering the need for a pragmatic approach in handling them.
Background
KCC GOPCs to be divided into 3 districts. Clinical administration supports of community based GOPCs from district hospitals. In order to enhance the current complaint management at community based GOPCs, a Patient Support Officer (PSO) for local support on complaint & feedback management at community based GOPC’s complaint was introduced since December 2019.
Objectives :
The aim of this project is to provide an easily accessible and efficient way to address the feedback and complaints fairly and effectively, both for the complainants and the staff being complained against. The ultimate goal is to close any service gaps, if existed, and to improve the service provision and patient care in the future.
Methodology :
Methodology
A. Patient focus
• Able to offer timely and direct help to patients especially on clinical issues
• Able to handle complaints more focused by Patient Support Officer who is a FM specialty nurse and familiar with operations in Primary Health Care setting
• Shortened response time to patient complaints/ feedbacks
B. Practice alignment
• Contact complainant directly for detail and offer assistance
• Sharing learning points and room for improvement across clinics
• Timely remedial actions or improvements if feasible should be carried out accordingly
• To ensure lesson learnt from complaint / feedback promulgated to frontline staff with appropriate follow-up actions carried out accordingly
C. Quality assurance
• Case sharing on learning points from selected complaints/ feedback to frontline staffs regularly at different platforms
• Staff education or empowerment on communication skills through different means, e.g. video clips, workshops, etc
D. Service development
• Designated liaison person for better communication with hospital PRO
• No. of complaints to hospital PRO should be reduced
• Workloads of hospital PRO could to be shared:
• Contact patient for details
• Draft written reply to Primary Health Service Director for vetting
• Enhance case review and complaint monitoring with designated coordinator
Result & Outcome :
Result
1. Organized more than 20 sharing sessions to clinic in charge and staff across the department to provide platform for sharing of good practice.
2. Standardized the clinic operational issues among 10 community based GOPCs ( e.g Deep Throat Salvia Test handling, Clinic entrance triage workflow alignment etc.) to enhance patient safety and communication.
3. Formulated the complaint and feedback registry and report to department Q & S monthly
4. Draft the reply letter and coordinated with hospital PROs to speed up (not more than 3 weeks after receiving the formal compliant form FM & GOPCs) the complaint handling procedures.
5. The number of cases seeking assistance (which were settled by PSO) accounted for approximately 24% in 2020 and 34% in 2021 of the total number of complaints & feedbacks registry.
Conclusion
PSO plays an important role in resolving complaints. With a view to handle the complaints and feedbacks proactively, relevant details of the complaint from the patient and the staff concerned are collected at an early stage to facilitate investigation. Besides, PSO initiates case sharing and learning points which helps to prevent traps and facilitate exploring service gaps, particularly to new launch services in KCC FM & GPOCs.
The department will roll out this project to all clinic nurse in charge. Not only does it helps the patients, but also the supervisor responsible for handling such complaints. It would greatly help to equip the staff to manage the clinic operation wisely and more effectively.
