One of the measurement domains identified for the Quality Indicators for Community Pharmacy initiative is provider experience. Provider experience and engagement can impact the performance of the health system as there is a well-established link between provider experience and quality of care provided. For instance, many studies of burnout among providers in healthcare settings have shown the negative impacts on patient care and outcomes. The Institute for Healthcare Improvement’s Triple Aim framework was adapted to the Quadruple Aim, recognizing the importance of reflecting provider satisfaction and wellbeing in optimizing health system performance.
The provider experience indicator selection process was led by a working group, comprising frontline pharmacy professionals, patients, and data experts. This working group was recruited to ensure indicators selected were important and meaningful and could accurately reflect the experience of pharmacy professionals. The working group was provided with an environmental scan and an extensive list of approximately 400 currently used global indicators aimed at measuring provider experience in various settings. A consultation with the public and the sector was conducted to provide critical feedback to the working group as they shortlisted the indicators found in the global literature. Over 200 pharmacy professionals provided feedback prior to indicator finalization.
Through a series of deliberations and surveying conducted with the working group, the final set of Provider Experience Indicators were established. An editorial working group consisting of data experts and frontline pharmacy professionals was consulted to finalize the language of the indicators, and ensure consistency across the health system. Once the indicator language was finalized, real-time testing of the interpretability of the indicators was conducted with a sample of pharmacy professionals to ensure the indicators selected were interpreted as intended.
A survey containing the provider experience indicators will be linked in each registrants’ annual renewal. The survey link will take registrants outside of the annual renewal to an external survey platform, where they can provide their responses. All responses to the survey will be anonymous and cannot be traced to any individual respondent. The provider experience indicators will not be used to track the performance of individual pharmacy professionals or to provide information about any one specific pharmacy/pharmacy professional, rather they will be publicly reported at an aggregate level (for example by LHIN or pharmacy type) to help identify demographic and regional variations in responses.
By collecting input directly from pharmacy professionals, the College will be able to take a data-driven approach to improving the provider experience in pharmacies and registrants are strongly encouraged to take advantage of this survey to share their feedback.
All responses to the provider experience indicators survey are completely anonymous. The survey does include a number of demographic questions to help contextualize the indicator data, but they are collected anonymously, and can never be traced back to any individual pharmacy professional.
Community pharmacy was selected to be the initial focus of the quality indicators initiative since indicators were already established in other practice settings such as hospitals and long-term care.
Starting in 2024, the quality indicators will be expanded to measure the experience of all pharmacists and pharmacy technicians providing direct patient care in any setting. The provider experience indicators survey will be open to all pharmacists and pharmacy technicians as they complete the annual renewal. There will be a “Not Applicable” option, if participants feel any of the indicator questions do not apply to them.
No pharmacy professionals’ individual data will be shared with other organizations, and your data cannot be shared with your employer. The provider experience indicators data is collected anonymously, and the data collection survey does not ask any information about any pharmacy professionals’ employer or specific workplace.
The College will be collecting information about the type of workplace pharmacy professionals practice in and other demographic data. Based on these demographic questions, aggregate data will be shared with pharmacy chains, corporate groups and other stakeholders in an effort to improve the performance on indicators where these groups can play a major role.
The quality indicators are intended to provide the profession, the public and other stakeholders with a clearer picture of the overall quality of pharmacy care in Ontario and support quality improvement efforts by pharmacy professionals and the College. Particularly with the provider experience indicator data, engagement of key stakeholders such as the pharmacy sector, corporate pharmacy groups, associations and other organizations who have implemented provider experience measurement will be critical in determining how to act on the data and insights.
The provider experience indicators are one measurement area of the quality indicators for pharmacy. During the original quality indicator selection process, provider experience was identified as an important area to measure, but one that needed further review and refinement, which is why it warranted its own working group and selection process. You can learn more about the complete set of Quality Indicators for Community Pharmacy here.
The environment that pharmacy professionals are practicing in affects the experience of providing care. Several of the Community Practice Environment Initiative Principles of Shared Accountability were used to identify the indicators for consideration by the working group. Additionally, insights from the provider experience data may be used to inform quality improvement and next steps in the Community Practice Initiative. You can learn more about the Community Practice Environment Initiative here.