Heathers Corner – Paper Surveys

I know what you are thinking: “I thought this survey is electronic!” Well, you’re right; this is an electronic survey, and it is designed that way so that less paper is changing hands and fewer clerical mistakes are introduced to the process. However, some people just don’t want to take the surveys electronically; they want the opportunity to sit down and write in their answers. This is unavoidable, but there is an easy solution. By offering this survey via paper you are giving your less tech-savvy clients the chance to share their opinions, which will expand the field of responses you are receiving from your patient group and make your results more valid.

We will provide a one-page, printable version of the survey. This document will save you paper and ink as compared to simply printing the survey directly from the website. There are many ways to distribute these surveys to your patients, and while you are more than welcome to do it however you see fit, we have seen that some ways work better than others. The surveys are designed to follow your patient’s natural progression through his/her visit. The questions start with appointment setting and check-in and end with the check-out process. Because we designed the survey in this manner, it’s very easy for your group to hand out the paper survey at the beginning of the appointment and collect it as the patient is on his/her way out. This will also save you and your patient time at the end of the visit. You can also provide your patients with a postage-paid envelope for mailing at a later time or ask them to bring in the survey the next time they come in, although they are quite likely to forget. I would also recommend that if you have multiple surveys running, you should not print out an individual stack of surveys for each provider. Instead, have your reception/greeting team ask which provider is being seen and then write that provider’s name at the top of the survey page before handing it to the patient. By doing this you are ensuring that your provider surveys do not get mixed up, and also that your team is getting more involved in the surveying process by actively participating and writing the provider’s name each and every time a survey is handed out. It should also be their responsibility to collect each survey when the patients are leaving your location.

Once the surveys have been collected and your team has made sure each survey includes the name of the provider, the surveys can be entered online. One of the best practices seems to be having the appointments team, reception team, or human resources staff enter the surveys. No matter who does it, a simple and effective way to enter the surveys is by having shortcuts to all the provider codes. This can easily be done by creating shortcuts and connecting the appropriate hyperlinks. Placing pictures of all your providers on a single page and linking each picture to its correct spot in the database is a very effective technique. The person who enters the surveys can expect to spend around 2 minutes per survey entering data. We know this because we’ve all done them ourselves, and our average times were fairly consistent. When you hand your designee a pile of surveys, he/she simply clicks on the appropriate picture for each survey, enters the patient’s responses, and then clicks “Submit.” Incentives for accurate and timely entry are critical. Mis-entry is always a possibility, so we recommend you emphasize the need for quality over speed!

Although the online option allows faster and less labor-intensive data-entry methods, the real world requires a multi-venue approach to maximize survey participation. As a reminder, at least two surveys per day per provider are suggested for excellent statistical validity.