Health services should collect feedback from inpatients at the point of service: opinions from patients and staff in acute and subacute facilities

OBJECTIVE: Point of service feedback (POSF) enables patients to give health services feedback about their experiences during or immediately after care. Despite the increasing use of POSF, little is known regarding patients' and staffs' opinions of this practice and whether they consider it acceptable or useful. The study aimed to determine patient and staff opinions regarding POSF. DESIGN: A cross-sectional survey. SETTING: Acute and subacute healthcare facilities. PARTICIPANTS: Two hundred and forty-seven patients and 221 staff. RESULTS: Participants indicated that patients should be invited to evaluate health services when they are in hospital or subacute care and improving services was the most important reason for doing so. Staff indicated that: collecting patients' feedback during their stay was an important part of providing care and not an interruption to it (n = 187 of 221, 85%); collecting patients' feedback was best done with a variety of methods; talking directly with patients during their stay was the preferred option (n = 161 of 219, 74%). More patients preferred to: give feedback during their stay (51%) than after discharge from care (15%); give feedback by talking with someone (45%) than completing a questionnaire (31%). Some patients (14%) were concerned about reprisals from staff if they gave negative feedback. CONCLUSIONS: POSF can be acceptable and useful for evaluating health services and should be incorporated into a person-centred approach that allows patients to choose from a variety of feedback options both during and after their stay. To be most useful, feedback should be incorporated into a quality improvement system.