Engaging Patients and Families to Develop Safety Indicators for Rehabilitation

Summary

This project engaged patients and families alongside staff and rehabilitation centre leaders to develop a set of patient safety indicators specific to the process of rehabilitation. Existing safety measures typically focused on acute care. This project aimed to build on existing measures and create specific patient-centred measures that were pertinent to rehabilitation. The project resulted in a list of the top nine safety indicators based on patient interviews and an assessment of the literature.

Grant Outputs

Patient Engagement: Putting Patients at the Centre of Care – http://www.cfhi-fcass.ca/WhatWeDo/Collaborations/PatientEngagement.aspx

This study further developed a safety-measurement system that better reflected the needs of patients. It focused on rehabilitation instead of acute care and sustained engagement in resulting improvement initiatives. A preliminary safety performance-measurement framework was refined and validated by patients, families, staff and administrators. Indicators that reflected patient/family consensus, as well as mechanisms to sustain patient engagement, were piloted over a six-month period to determine their utility and feasibility within the Institute.