For decades, hospitals have asked patients how their visit went. Oftentimes, that feedback went nowhere.
Not because hospitals didn’t care. Not because the data wasn't collected. But because the systems collecting it couldn't turn it into action fast enough to matter. Paper surveys took months to process. Patients found the feedback process to be cumbersome. Call center follow-ups were patchy. And by the time a manager saw a report, the moment had long passed.
Trillium Health Partners, a hospital system serving the diverse communities of Mississauga and West Toronto, Ontario, Canada, knew this problem well and was determined to fix it.
Reaching patients in new ways
When Trillium Health Partners moved from paper surveys to digital distribution, the first thing that changed was reach.
Patients now had an opportunity to share feedback in a few different ways:
● An email with a survey link sent within 24 hours of their visit
● QR codes on discharge paperwork
● iPads provided on select units to gather insights before patients even left the building
The result was a resounding 907% increase in response rates.
Behind that number are patients with feedback to share who never had an easy way to do so. For the first time, teams who had operated without any patient data were seeing exactly what their patients were saying, almost in real time.
We are getting real-time feedback for our teams that they can act on – actionable insights, so that they know what's going on in their unit. — Adam Gdyczynski, Senior Corporate Lead of Patient Experience, Trillium Health Partners
More responses, richer answers
While open-ended survey questions are valuable, patients often give broad answers. "My experience was good." "Everything was fine." Useful to know, but difficult to act on.
Trillium started using Qualtrics® AI-driven conversational feedback inside their surveys. When a patient gives a vague or general response, AI follows up with a tailored follow-up question based on what they wrote to gain more insight.
85% of patients who were prompted gave more detailed, actionable responses.
Instead of patients giving us broad or vague open-ended responses, they're now being prompted by AI and in 85% of cases they're giving us more insightful feedback that we can actually use. — Adam Gdyczynski, Senior Corporate Lead of Patient Experience, Trillium Health Partners
Now, care teams could see not just that an experience was good, but why: a nurse who took time to explain, a registration staff member who made someone feel seen. That's the detail that actually changes how care gets delivered.
The feedback that gives back to the people who earned it
Most feedback programs are built to surface problems. But the data tells another story too: what's working, and who made it happen.
At Trillium Health Partners, positive comments started flowing back to the point-of-care staff who earned them. A staff member could find out the next day that a patient specifically mentioned them by name, and what they did that made a difference.
In an industry where burnout is real and recognition can be scarce, this is not a small thing.
And when something did need attention, managers had enough context to act on it. The data connected to real moments in the patient journey, not just abstract scores on a dashboard.
Sharing positive comments with teams has become an engagement strategy. It gets teams to look at the data, and when they are highly burned out, to hear what they are doing well is so uplifting—but it also opens their mind to learn about what can be improved.
— Kerry Kuluski, Scientist and Dr. Mathias Gysler Research Chair in Patient and Family Centred Care, Institute for Better Health, Trillium Health Partners
Better surveys didn't change how Trillium Health Partners delivers care. Acting on what they heard, did. That's the difference between data that sits in a report and data that shows up in how an anxious patient is greeted, how a burnt-out nurse gets recognized, and how care improves
Qualtrics helps your organization reach more patients, understand them better, and use what they say to improve the experience for the next person who walks through the door. With all your feedback connected in one platform, your teams have everything they need to act on it.
