New Brunswick Health Council launches landmark primary health care survey

 

February 9, 2011

 

Moncton, NB (NBHC) - The New Brunswick Health Council (NBHC) has just launched the most comprehensive primary health care survey in New Brunswick’s history. To be conducted over the next two months, the survey will reach 13,500 households in New Brunswick to understand and report on the provincial population’s primary health care experience at a community level.

 

Defined as usually the first place people go when they have health concerns, often to a general practitioner or family physician, Primary Health Care typically includes routine care, care for urgent but minor or common health problems, mental health care, maternity and child care, psychosocial services, liaison with home care, health promotion and disease prevention, nutrition counseling, and end of life care.

 

Primary Health Care may include other health professionals such as nurses, nurse practitioners, dietitians, physiotherapists, and social workers and is also an important source of chronic disease prevention and management. In New Brunswick, 74% of adults reported a chronic condition with arthritis, high blood pressure and asthma being the most common, which have a significant impact on our health system.  

 

The NBHC’s primary health care survey will include respondents from every community in New Brunswick and will provide comprehensive information designed to guide decisions to improve the health care system. “We are extremely excited about the breadth and depth of this unprecedented study,“ said NBHC CEO Stephane Robichaud. “We encourage all New Brunswickers to take the call and the time to participate. This survey is the best opportunity all of us have as citizens to influence the quality of our health care in the province.”

 

The survey is composed of over eighty questions, but the number of questions answered by each citizen will depend on the number of primary care services he or she has received in the past year.  The questions touch on topics ranging from the location where New Brunswickers generally seek care (doctor, after hours clinic, emergency room, alternative practitioner or others) to the quantity and quality of these experiences in terms of indicators like the information provided, the wait time, the ease of referrals, the visits to specialists, the availability of test results, among many aspects of the experience.

 

The goal is to conduct surveys to target the whole system within a three year cycle. The results will be made public in the summer 2011 and will be available to government departments and health care providers to make fact-based decisions to improve health care delivery and the health care experience for New Brunswickers.

 

The NBHC has been established as an independent organization that measures, monitors and evaluates New Brunswick’s health system performance through a citizen-centered dual mandate of performance measurement and citizen engagement.

 

MEDIA CONTACTS
New Brunswick Health Council: Christine Paré, 506-869-6714, christine.pare@nbhc.ca