User experiences with Norwegian casualty clinics: results from a survey among seven casualty clinics (“The Watchtowers”)
PasOpp report
|Updated
Summary
In 2010/ 2011 the Norwegian Knowledge Centre for the Health Services conducted a user experience survey among users of seven casualty clinics which are part of the National Centre for Emergency Primary Health Care’s project called “The Watchtowers”, a representative sample of Norwegian casualty clinics. Patients that had contacted any of seven casualty clinics in the period 1 – 30 November 2010 (1 – 31 December for two of the casualty clinics) were included in the survey. Data collection was conducted from December 2010 to April 2011.
The questionnaire used in the survey contained a series of questions about experiences with the casualty clinics, both in terms of availability, organization and processes. The questionnaire items were assessed statistically, both individually and by grouping questions together in the following four scales: telephone contact, doctors, nurses, and organization.
Results
A total of 844 users responded to the questionnaire, giving a response rate of 42 %. Results show that the users reported positive experiences with the casualty clinics, especially questions about communication and contact with the staff at the clinic. Some examples are (percentages that answered in one of the top two response categories; to a large or very large extent): 88% of the users stated that the doctor at the casualty clinic was understandable The question about whether the health personnel was understandable also got the largest number of positive responses when the users assessed the telephone contact with the casualty clinic and the nurses there 82% of the users stated that the doctors at the casualty clinic took them seriously
In some areas the users reported poorer experiences, especially related to availability and organization. Some examples are (percentages that answered in one of the three lowest response categories; not at all, to a small extent or to a very large extent): 66% of the users reported that they did not receive satisfactory information about how long they might expect to wait in the waiting room. More than half of the users thought that the time they had to wait in the waiting room was unacceptable 27% of the users reported that they had to wait one hour or more from their arrival at the casualty clinic until they got any examination or treatment 37% of the users experienced a potential for improvement on the items about organization of the casualty clinic
Potential for improvement Results show that many users reported positive experiences with the casualty clinics. At the same time the study also identifies several areas with potential for improvement, particularly when it comes to organization and waiting time. The survey also showed that there were large differences between the casualty clinics that participated in the survey. In the study we compared each casualty clinic with the average of the other casualty clinics (case-mix adjusted for differences in patient composition).