Improved patient communication among top ideas to improve Nova Scotia health care
Nova Scotia released results of the Healthcare Improvement Challenge on Monday. (Communications Nova Scotia photo)
By Rick Conrad
Better communication with patients was among the 10 most popular ideas from Nova Scotia health care workers in response to a government survey of low-cost ways to improve the health system.
The Healthcare Improvement Challenge contest launched in October. The government was looking for ideas that were easy to implement with little to no funding. Eligible submissions were entered into a random draw for prizes of $1,000.
The contest received more than 2,200 submissions from Nova Scotia health care workers.
Their ideas were narrowed down to a shortlist of 20. The public then voted for their Top 3 from that list, from Dec. 20 to Jan. 8.
“The people who know our healthcare system best told us what common-sense, low-cost and easy-to-implement improvements we could make, and Nova Scotians chose those they felt would have the biggest impact,” Premier Tim Houston said Monday in a news release.
Houston said the 10 ideas are now priorities and the government will work with health-care providers to make them happen, where possible. He didn’t provide a timetable of when these suggestions would become reality.
Here are the Top 10 vote getters.
- Set up a text notification system to remind patients of their appointments.
- Give patients the option to get appointment letters by email instead of regular mail.
- Allow audiologists to send direct referrals to ear, nose and throat specialists instead of making patients go to their primary care provider for the referral.
- Reduce pressure on nurses by allowing continuing care assistants to work to their full scope of practice by doing things like taking vitals.
- Install monitors in all emergency departments that show wait times and other related information about what a patient should expect in an ER.
- Enable hospital caller ID so patients can see when the hospital calls.
- Stop using ER for pre-operative bloodwork for patients scheduled for a Monday morning procedure. Instead, offer them priority appointments before the weekend.
- Make intake for surgery or specialist appointments faster by allowing patients to pre-register online for their surgery or specialist appointment.
- Develop a registration app, where patients can enter their information, generating a QR code. They can then show this code to clerks to scan this on the patient’s arrival, saving time and data coding errors.
- If patients book an appointment for diagnostic imaging like an MRI or ultrasound online, give them the optoin to cancel online.
Email: rickconradqccr@gmail.com
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