Using survey data for quality improvement
Use patient experience survey data to improve care. Access tools and guides to support quality improvement and co-designed service changes.
Patient-reported experience measures are valuable indicators of the quality and safety of health care services. Better patient experiences are associated with higher levels of patient safety and clinical effectiveness.
Collecting patient experience data is a starting point. Patient feedback needs to be understood, shared and acted on in a meaningful way. Involving staff, whānau and consumers in a co-design approach to quality improvement ensures improvement efforts are inclusive and informed.
On this page you will find resources, survey tools and guides to help teams use their patient experience survey for improvements in service delivery, consumer experience and consumer outcomes.
Patient Experience Survey (PES) to Plan-Do-Study-Act (PDSA) guides and resources
The PES to PDSA guides and resources are designed to help you use patient experience survey data to conduct quality improvement initiatives and track the progress of these initiatives.
Patient experience survey data workbooks
- From PES to PDSA: Using adult primary care patient experience survey data for quality improvement
- From PES to PDSA: Using adult hospital inpatient experience survey data for quality improvement
Home and community support services (HCSS) survey data workbook
Workshop slides: Using HCSS survey results for quality improvement
On 8 April 2025, an online workshop was held for home and community support service providers to help them use their results from the home and community support services experience survey for quality improvement. The workshop included an overview of national results, an introduction to the Model for Improvement, and a case study from a home and community support services provider.
Further learning
Co-design
- Understanding co-design
- Co-designing nudges: Phase two of raising the bar on the national adult inpatient experience survey
- Raising the bar on the national patient experience survey: phase one
Quality Improvement
Consumer engagement and improving patient experience
Literature on patient experience surveys and quality improvement
- Patient experience surveys are vital in the twenty-first century: let’s put some myths to rest
Patient-reported data derived from surveys places patient feedback at the heart of quality improvement and health system responsiveness. Such surveys are not without critics, however, who contend that there are better ways to collect feedback. In this article published in the New Zealand Medical Journal we debunk these myths in the context of the Te Tāhū Hauora Health Quality & Safety Commission patient experience survey programme. - Patients' experience of using hospital services: An analysis of trends in inpatient surveys in NHS acute trusts in England, 2005–13
This report from The King's Fund includes examples of interventions undertaken in response to survey findings, barriers to using survey data effectively, and identifies three key enablers for using patient survey data. These are leadership, staff engagement and trust-wide co-ordination. Although the report focuses on inpatient surveys in NHS acute trusts in England, it is likely the successes, barriers and enablers are similar to those for primary care surveys and therefore of interest to general practice and primary health organisations and implementing the adult primary care patient experience survey. - Patient experiences: a systematic review of quality improvement interventions in a hospital setting (pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov).
- Improving patient experience in primary care: a multimethod programme of research on the measurement and improvement of patient experience (pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov).
- The use of patient experience data for quality improvement in hospitals: A scoping review (pxjournal.org).
- A systematic review of evidence on the links between patient experience and clinical safety and effectiveness (bmjopen.bmj.com).
- Systematic review of approaches to using patient experience data for quality improvement in healthcare settings (bmjopen.bmj.com).
- How to sustainably build capacity in quality improvement within a healthcare organisation: a deep-dive, focused qualitative analysis (bmchealthservres.biomedcentral.com).
- Understanding and using patient experience feedback to improve health care quality: systematic review and framework development (pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov).
- Understanding how front-line staff use patient experience data for service improvement: an exploratory case study evaluation (www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov).
- How do frontline staff use patient experience data for service improvement? Findings from an ethnographic case study evaluation (pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov).
- Co-designing healthcare services with patients (kclpure.kcl.ac.uk).
- Understanding why UK hospital staff find it difficult to make improvements based on patient feedback: A qualitative study (pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov).
- How to implement patient experience surveys and use their findings for service improvement: a qualitative expert consultation study in Australian general practice (pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov).
Published: 27 Oct 2023
Modified: 18 Jul 2025
