How do you measure feedback's impact on patient outcomes?

1 Define your feedback goals

Before you can measure the impact of feedback, you need to have a clear idea of what you want to achieve with it. Do you want to improve your skills, knowledge, or attitudes? Do you want to change your behavior, habits, or routines? Do you want to enhance your communication, collaboration, or leadership? Depending on your feedback goals, you will need different types of feedback, such as formative, summative, or developmental. You will also need to align your feedback goals with your patient outcomes, such as quality, safety, or satisfaction.

3 Collect your feedback data

To measure the impact of feedback, you need to collect data that reflects your feedback goals and patient outcomes. You can use different methods and tools to gather feedback data, such as surveys, questionnaires, interviews, focus groups, observations, audits, or tests. You should choose methods and tools that are valid, reliable, and feasible for your context and purpose. You should also collect feedback data at different time points, such as before, during, and after your feedback intervention, to track your progress and changes.

5 Act on your feedback data

The final step of measuring the impact of feedback is to act on your feedback data. You should use your feedback data to inform your decisions and actions that will improve your performance and satisfaction and your patients' outcomes. You should also use your feedback data to evaluate your feedback intervention and identify what worked well and what needs improvement. You should also share your feedback data with your feedback sources and stakeholders to acknowledge their input and feedback and foster a culture of feedback.

6 Here’s what else to consider

This is a space to share examples, stories, or insights that don’t fit into any of the previous sections. What else would you like to add?