Patient Safety and Satisfaction

Patient Safety and Satisfaction

The Segal Cancer Centre is committed to providing quality cancer care while always being mindful of patient safety and satisfaction. The Centre’s Co-Director and Director of Nursing, Lynne McVey, N. MSc(A), is also the Co-Chair (with Dr. Joseph Portnoy, Director of Professional Services) of the JGH’s Quality Program whose mission is “identifying, assessing, implementing and evaluating the quality of patient care and the outcomes of service delivery.” The Centre participates in quality improvement, risk management and patient satisfaction initiatives set up by the Quality Program and is also encouraged to present its ideas at the monthly Quality and Risk Management Committee meetings.

As part of its commitment to patient satisfaction, the Segal Cancer Centre and its various teams have worked with the Patient Satisfaction Program to create tailor-made patient satisfaction surveys and distribute them to patients for a defined period of time. The results of the surveys have provided useful information on the strengths and weaknesses of the various components of the Centre. Once weaknesses have been identified, measures are put into place to address and correct the issues.

The Cancer Care team had conducted patient satisfaction surveys in 2003 and 2005 prior to the opening of the Segal Cancer Centre. Feedback from these surveys, as well as a focus group held following the opening of the Centre in 2006, helped shape the development of the 2008 Segal Cancer Centre -Oncology Clinic, patient satisfaction survey. The Cancer Nutrition-Rehabilitation Program, Palliative Care, the Gynecologic Oncology team and Radiation Oncology have also conducted patient satisfaction surveys since the opening of the Centre.

In addition to formal surveys and focus groups, feedback from cancer patients and their families is always welcome as we strive to continually improve our delivery of services.