Information for Patients and Families Sharing Feedback
You may have been invited to share feedback about your experiences and outcomes as a patient in the Saskatchewan Health Authority (SHA). Your answers will help the SHA to look at ways to improve its services. Your answers could benefit the care experiences of other patients.
It is important that your questions are answered before you decide whether to provide feedback. Below are some frequently asked questions that have come from patients in the past. We encourage you to read this with your family, friends, and health care team. If you have questions that are not answered below, please use the contact information within your survey to ask.
Why is the SHA asking patients for feedback about their care experiences and outcomes?
Patient’s feedback provides valuable information on how they feel about care they receive and their health status. Patient’s feedback allows the SHA to know what is working well and what needs to be improved. It can benefit other patients receiving future services.
What do I need to know before providing feedback?
The SHA uses a range of methods and tools to ask about your care experiences and outcomes. You can choose to share feedback, or not. You choose how much feedback you provide. You can skip questions you don’t want to answer. You can stop sharing feedback at any time.
How will my data be used?
Your answers will be combined with answers from other patients to better understand how patients experience care in SHA hospitals. That information will be used to make improvements to the way care is provided. Information you share will never be shared with care providers in a way that identifies you and will never impact decisions about your care.
Are there risks I should know about?
The SHA is not aware of any risks to patients willing to provide feedback on care experiences and outcomes. Any potential risks related to a specific survey will be described at the start of the survey. If you become anxious or upset as you answer questions you can stop sharing feedback. You can call the 811 HealthLine or 211 Saskatchewan for support.
Why am I being asked to share my age, gender, sex, race, etc.?
The SHA collects these details to see if care is different for different groups of people. If survey answers show that some groups of people are having worse healthcare experiences than others, knowing this information is an important step towards understanding where improvements to programs or services are needed.
How will my privacy be protected?
The SHA follows Saskatchewan legislation, The Local Authority Freedom of Information and Privacy Act (LAFOIP) and The Health Information Protection Act (HIPA), for managing private information. The SHA keeps personal information and personal health information that identifies you private. Your answers will remain confidential. Your answers to survey questions are merged with answers from other participants. When results are shared, they are reported from a group of participants, not just you. If you choose to share a personal story, the SHA will try to minimize any risk of you being recognizable through your story. The SHA will also take precautions by removing specific names of people or places mentioned.
How will my survey answers be collected and stored?
The survey you receive will include details about how your answers are collected and stored. Your responses will be stored in for a minimum of 5 years. There is no maximum amount of time your data will be stored for.
Will my data be linked with other datasets?
The data you provide may be linked with other datasets to help us better understand the data as part of quality improvement projects. When this is a possibility it will be stated at the start of the survey.
Will my data be shared?
The SHA may share data with companies we contract to help support survey administration, analysis of results, and to help better understand the data as part of quality improvement projects. If we do share this data, we will always ensure that data identifying you (e.g. name or email) is removed and information linked to your identify, such as your health card number, is only shared with people who need access it to for quality improvement purposes. People who are able to access data in this way are bound by specific legislation to ensure identifiable information is never shared publicly. We will never sell your data to a third party.
Will my data be used for research purposes?
The SHA may make regularly collected data available to researchers to help generate new knowledge. This is done though agreements such as those in place for the Health Research Data Platform (HRDP). When this is done processes are followed to ensure the research is ethical, and that patient privacy and confidentiality are respected. It is possible that your responses will be used for research purposes in this way. If this happens it may be linked with other datasets. To protect your privacy and confidentiality all identifying information will be removed before it can be used for research purposes.
How can I get the results?
You can ask for survey results from the contact person listed in the opening of your survey. Data summaries of what patients have shared in provincial improvement initiatives can be found online at What Matters to You: Patient Reported Insights.