An ISO 10002:2004-Based Feedback-Handling System for the Emergency and Inpatients Care

Abstract

The development of an ISO 10002:2004-based system for handling unsolicited patient feedback within a continuum of care in a Canadian hospital is presented. Through interviews of registered nurses, unit managers and experts, patient encounters and existing feedback-handling activities were studied and the learning was incorporated in a Feedback Handling System (FHS). Guidance from ISO 10004:2012 was used in defining FHS maintenance activities. New activities and items that are not suggested in ISO 10002:2004 were introduced. The FHS follow-up component was validated through actual patient feedbacks. The usefulness and feasibility of the developed FHS were verified by interviewing research participants. According to the feedback-handling experts, the FHS could be useful at the unit–level. To our knowledge, this paper shows the first application of ISO 10002:2004 in integrated health care. It also demonstrates an example of the “augmentation” of ISO 10002:2004 with ISO 10004:2012-based monitoring of patient satisfaction in integrated health care.

Keywords: Integrated health care, ISO 10002, ISO 10004, Standards, Patient centeredness, Continuum of care.