Percent-of-complaints-acknowledged - Health Quality Ontario (HQO)

INDICATOR NAME

Name

Percentage of complaints acknowledged to the individual who made a complaint within 2, 5 and 10 business days

Alternate Name

Complaints Acknowledgement

INDICATOR DESCRIPTION

Description

This indicator measures the complaints received by a hospital, long-term care home, or Community Care Access Centre that were acknowledged to the individual who made a complaint. This indicator is calculated on the number of complaints submitted within a fiscal year.

Indicator Status

Developmental

HQO Reporting tool/product

Public reporting

Dimension

Efficient, Patient-centred, Safe

Type

Outcome

DEFINITION AND SOURCE INFORMATION

Unit of Measurement

Percentage

Calculation Methods

Numerator divided by the denominator times 100.

Numerator including inclusion/exclusion

Number of complaints that received a formal acknowledgement:

Within two business days
Within three to five business days
Within six to 10 business days

Denominator including inclusion/exclusion

All complaints received by the hospital, long-term care home, or CCAC within the fiscal year.

Inclusions:

Complaints received within a fiscal year, but acknowledged and closed in the first 60 days of the following fiscal year
The day and time of complaint should be recorded
Complaints received on and between the first and last day of the fiscal year including non-business days and after hours
Repeated complaints on the same issue from the same individual or by a different individual on behalf of the same patient/resident are counted as a single complaint
One complaint may include numerous issues, but should be counted as a single complaint • Complaints included must be documented through the established complaints process
Oral complaints made in person or by phone call
Written complaints made by letter, email, fax, text, etc.
For CCACs, complaints that come to or are recorded by service providers or CCAC staff should be included if the complaint is not immediately resolvable

Exclusions:

The complaint is not documented through the established complaints process.

For example:

Complaints that were acknowledged and resolved immediately after the complaint was received (e.g. changing the temperature in a patient or resident's room)
The complaint needed no additional intervention

Adjustment (risk, age/sex standardization)- detailed

This indicator is unadjusted and unstandardized. This will require future data and further analysis.

Data Source

Local data collection

Data provided to HQO by

Local data collection

Reported Levels of comparability /stratifications (defined)

Health care setting, Institution, Region

OTHER RELEVANT INFORMATION

Caveats and Limitations

There are important legislative differences between the sectors that would be relevant to the measurement of the indicator. Hospital legislation requires complaints to be acknowledged within five business days. No specific requirement for acknowledgement, however, the Long-Term Care act is required to have complaints acknowledged and actioned within 10 business days. Similarly, home care legislation requires complaints to be resolved in 60 business days where possible. In long-term care and home care, complaints can be submitted to the facility or the Ministry-supported action-line. For long-term care, this indicator will only include complaints submitted directly to the home. CCACs include complaints that have been submitted to action-line. Health Quality Ontario will produce facility-level online reports beginning 2018