​​Knowing what matters to patients in a timely way is integral to improving and providing the highest quality patient care. Supporting hospital members in this area is a key priority for the Ontario Hospital Association (OHA). Since 1997, the OHA and our members have been working together to inform and drive improvements in hospital practices by measuring patients' experiences with their hospital care using standardized patient survey instruments. Le​arn more about our services.

Ontario hospitals are also required to survey patients at least once every fiscal year, according to Ontario's Excellent Care for All Act (ECFAA), 2010. Patient experience is also a core focus of the new Ontario Health Teams (as part of Bill 74, The People's Health Care Act, 2019), a priority indicator in hospital Quality Improvement Plans, and an Accreditation Canada/Health Standards Organization requirement.

Join the OHA's Community of Practice

The OHA, with the guidance of a Steering Committee of hospital patient and family experience leaders, has established a virtual Patient Experience Community of Practice (CoP). The CoP is an ongoing provincial community that collaborates to drive enhancements in the collection and use of patient, client, and caregiver experience data to advance patient- and family-centred care. Members of the CoP benefit from having access to a community of system partners, peers and ideas that enable them to better understand and implement improvement strategies for the experiences and outcomes of patients and families.

Meeting content is driven by a provincial Steering Committee of hospital patient and family experience leaders and includes discussions with thought leaders, stakeholders, and experts on key patient experience priorities. Meetings typically occur four times a year and are in webinar format. Feedback from CoP meetings will sometimes inform the focus of the OHA's patient experience work.

Patient Experience Collaboration Platform

The OHA also has a virtual connection place for the Patient Experience CoP hosted on the Yammer platform, designed to facilitate the sharing of ideas, information, and resources among peers in between CoP meetings, and also enables the OHA to post important patient experience updates. Access is by invitation and accessible by forum members only.

If you are part of an Ontario hospital and would like to join the CoP and/or the Yammer connection forum, please contact us at patientexperience@o​ha.com.