Alberta health-care strategy to focus on hospital staff, patient communication
New policy requires health-care workers to introduce themselves to patients
Alberta Health Services has unveiled what it calls a "patient first" strategy with the goal of improving communication between patients and health-care providers to help improve services.
AHS president Vickie Kaminski says some patients feel they are not being heard by the people providing care.
"There's not an environment where they can raise their concerns," she said.
Once the plan is in place, nurses, physicians and other health-care staff and providers will have to introduce themselves by name, job and duty. There will also be an emphasis on answering patient questions and concerns.
Deb Runnalls, co-chair of the Patient First steering committee, says many of the principles of the strategy are already common practice for some health-care providers.
"It happens every day, but what we're doing now is putting in place guidelines to ensure it happens every time," she said.
She says much of the patient first strategy is already in place at the South Health Campus in Calgary.
AHS president Kaminski says these changes will be put in place over the next three years at no additional cost.