South Rand Hospital patients’ experience of care survey

South Rand Hospital embarked on a three-day annual and national patient experience of care survey (PEC Survey) from August 6 to 8.

Here the hospital finds out how the patients experienced their services. They conduct this PEC Survey using questionnaires for both in-patients and out-patients.

The patient experience refers to the many varied interactions that patients have with the healthcare system, including their care from health plans, and from doctors, nurses, and staff in hospitals, physician practices, and other healthcare facilities.

Quality assurance manager at the hospital, Sharoll Dinkebogile said although they received 86% last year, the target this is 90% and above. “If we get 90% and above that means our patients are satisfied with the services we render here. This what we always strive as the hospital, to do better and render services efficiently,” she said.

Dinkebigile also noted that they looked at the six priorities during the PEC Survey:

• Cleanliness and infection prevention and control (level of patient experience with cleanliness of a health establishment and Infection Prevention and Control (IPC) practices in the health establishment).

• Access to services (level of patient experience with accessibility of healthcare services).

• Values and attitudes (level of patient experience of staff values and attitudes).

• Patient waiting time (level of patient experience with waiting time for services in health)

• Availability and use of medicines (level of patient experience with availability and use of medicines).

• Patient safety (level of patient experience with physical safety while in the health establishment).

She also mentioned that the directive comes from national structures where they determine how many people must be interviewed

“Not to be biased the national gives us the headcount of both the in- and out-patients. The results of the survey will then be generated by the Health Information Management system. It will be captured live and monitored nationally. In that way we will have an idea of what our patients need in terms of the priorities mentioned earlier,” she said.