{"id":6428,"date":"2024-01-15T12:05:18","date_gmt":"2024-01-15T16:05:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/?p=6428"},"modified":"2024-01-15T17:46:27","modified_gmt":"2024-01-15T21:46:27","slug":"improved-patient-communication-among-top-ideas-to-improve-nova-scotia-health-care","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/2024\/01\/15\/improved-patient-communication-among-top-ideas-to-improve-nova-scotia-health-care\/","title":{"rendered":"Improved patient communication among top ideas to improve Nova Scotia health care"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"

Nova Scotia released results of the Healthcare Improvement Challenge on Monday. (Communications Nova Scotia photo)<\/p><\/div>\n

By Rick Conrad<\/p>\n

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.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Healthcare Improvement Challenge contest launched in October.<\/span> 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.<\/span><\/p>\n

The contest received more than 2,200 submissions from Nova Scotia health care workers.<\/span><\/p>\n

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.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe 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,\u201d Premier Tim Houston said Monday in a news release.<\/span><\/p>\n

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.<\/span><\/p>\n

Here are the Top 10 vote getters.<\/span><\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Set up a text notification system to remind patients of their appointments.<\/span><\/li>\n
  2. Give patients the option to get appointment letters by email instead of regular mail.<\/span><\/li>\n
  3. 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.<\/span><\/li>\n
  4. Reduce pressure on nurses by allowing continuing care assistants to work to their full scope of practice by doing things like taking vitals.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n
  5. Install monitors in all emergency departments that show wait times and other related information about what a patient should expect in an ER.<\/span><\/li>\n
  6. Enable hospital caller ID so patients can see when the hospital calls.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n
  7. Stop using ER for pre-operative bloodwork for patients scheduled for a Monday morning procedure. Instead, offer them priority appointments before the weekend.<\/span><\/li>\n
  8. Make intake for surgery or specialist appointments faster by allowing patients to pre-register online for their surgery or specialist appointment.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n
  9. 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\u2019s arrival, saving time and data coding errors.<\/span><\/li>\n
  10. If patients book an appointment for diagnostic imaging like an MRI or ultrasound online, give them the optoin to cancel online.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Email: rickconradqccr@gmail.com<\/a><\/p>\n

    Listen to the news update for Jan. 15 below<\/p>\nhttps:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/jan1524newsupdatw.mp3<\/a><\/audio>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    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 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13,5],"tags":[1596,241,537,1597,98],"class_list":["post-6428","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-community-news","category-news-posts","tag-healthcare-improvement-challenge","tag-nova-scotia","tag-nova-scotia-health","tag-patient-care","tag-tim-houston"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6428","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6428"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6428\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6446,"href":"https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6428\/revisions\/6446"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6428"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6428"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6428"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}