Opportunities - Improving Patient Flow in Alberta Hospitals: A Scoping Review and Health Policy Analysis to move evidence into practice
Improving Patient Flow in Alberta Hospitals: A
Scoping Review and Health Policy Analysis to move evidence into practice
University of Calgary
Background
When patients need to be admitted to hospital, they want their patient journey to be as quick as possible while remaining safe. However, in Alberta, admitted patients spend 6% longer in hospital than the national averages. In addition, 16% of patients at any one time are in hospital beds where their needs are more appropriate for care within their local community. With over 25% of total healthcare funds being spent on hospital care, we could be managing hospital beds more efficiently while making sure patients are receiving the right care in the right place at the right time, based on their care needs.
Operational leaders and policymakers are continually trying to improve this through initiatives focused on patient flow through the hospital. However, they often lack the time to keep on top of all published literature on how to improve patient flow and may not have access to the current effective strategies to help.
We are in the process of conducting a Scoping Review of the published literature on how to improve patient flow. Through the scoping review process, we will search and review all potential ideas that have been tested to improve patient flow.
Using this information, we will be conducting a Health Policy Analysis to review and assess the different ideas we’ve identified through the Scoping Review. The Health Policy Analysis will be conducted by the research team, however for our team to conduct this assessment, we need guidance from operational leaders, policy makers and patients on the following:
- What criteria should we be assessing our patient flow ideas by?
- Should all criteria be treated equally in our assessment?
To set up our Health Policy Analysis, we will be forming an Advisory Committee to address these questions. The committee will include patient & family representatives, plus operational staff, strategic planners and policy makers.
Over three meetings we hope to get the voices of patient & family members involved in developing the criteria for our analysis to ensure our preferred solutions work not only operationally, but for the betterment of in hospital patient experience too.
Roles and Responsibilities
We are seeking up to eight Patient & Family Advisors who have experience of being admitted, as an adult, to hospital in Alberta to join our Advisory Committee. Advisory Committee will be made up of Patients & Family members, operational leaders, policymakers and strategic thinkers across Alberta – as such we will be meeting online for our discussions. The Advisory Committee is being set up to drive the direction for our research by setting our question, identifying the criteria for assessment and whether any criteria should be prioritized.
The Patient & Family Members selected to be members of the committee will not be participants in the study but will be providing critical guidance on the study methods and outputs. No prior knowledge of Scoping Reviews or Health Policy Analysis is required. The research team will take time to orient Patient and Family Members through the steps needed to determine how we approach our study, and we will provide background in our meetings together.
Time Commitment
We are hoping to get input from the Advisory Committee on the approach to the Health Policy Analysis across three meetings tentatively scheduled to be held between
May – early July 2026.
Meeting 1 (60 mins) will be held with the Patient Advisors to provide background of our study and the necessary training on what is patient flow, what is a scoping review and how it is interacting with our Health Policy Analysis.
Meeting 2 (60 mins) will also be held with the Patient Advisors to discuss potential criteria for assessing our patient flow improvement ideas.
Meeting 3 (90 mins) will be a joint meeting with the Patient Advisors and the Operational Leaders, Strategic Thinkers and Policymakers to compare and contrast thoughts on criteria with a view to create a singular list of criteria, and if relevant, whether some of the criteria should be more important to our analysis.
The research team will communicate with the Advisory Committee members on the outcomes of the work once complete. This is anticipated in Fall 2026 / Winter 2027.
Compensation
Compensation will be offered for each online meeting – as follows:
Meeting 1: 1hr ($40) + 30 mins preparation time ($20)
Meeting 2: 1hr ($40) + 30 mins preparation time ($20)
Meeting 3: 90 mins ($60) + 30 mins preparation time ($20)
Total commitment for this request is 5 hrs, compensated at a total amount of $200 per Patient and Family member participating in the committee. The research team will ensure that the limited pre-work that may be required prior to the meeting will be minimized to respect the Patient & Family Advisors time.
As the work is being conducted across the province, we will be meeting online (virtually) via the Zoom platform. As such there will be no further expenses paid for attending the meetings.
For more information or to express interest please reach out to
Chris Roach
Email: Christopher.roach@ucalgary.ca
