Before supporting somebody to share their story, you may find it helpful to read these frequently asked questions (FAQs) about Care Opinion Canada. These questions & answers should give you a good basic understanding of Care Opinion Canada and help you to answer any questions that patients or service users may ask.
What is Care Opinion?
Care Opinion Canada is a program of Imagine Citizens Network and is first launching in Alberta with a focus on Primary Care and Continuing Care services. Care Opinion Canada is a website which allows the public to share a story about their Health and/or social care experience in a safe and simple way. The website provides a platform which automatically sends stories to the right service/s. This allows them to respond to and learn from the feedback.
More about Care Opinion Canada
More about Imagine Citizens Network
Who Can Share Their Story?
Anyone can share their story, and all stories shared are anonymous. Care Opinion Canada asks authors to choose their own username and doesn’t share personal details. People provide feedback about their own health/social care experience or the experience of someone they care for, a friend or a relative. Staff, volunteers and advocates are also able to share a story on behalf of a patient/service user.
What do you Mean by “Story”?
We ask people to share their experiences, positive, negative, or mixed in just the way that suits them. This feedback is different from a formal complaint or survey. We want to give people a voice and share this on our public website so that everyone can see it. Feedback can be about more than one healthcare service received so that all the different people that read your story can see your whole experience.
Why are Stories Moderated?
Care Opinion Canada program staff reads all stories before they are published. If the moderation team are worried for any reason about a story going onto our website, we might get in contact with the story author before we publish their story. Care Opinion Canada publishes nearly all stories but is also very careful to keep both authors and staff safe. More information about how this is done can be found here https://www.careopinion.ca/info/moderation
Who Responds to Stories?
Staff who provide the service/s will be invited to respond to a story as well as other organizations who are involved in delivering, commissioning or monitoring these healthcare services. The author of the story is then able to comment further. Members of the public are not able to respond to or comment on stories.
Is Imagine Citizens Network and it's Care Opinion Canada Program part of the Alberta Health or Alberta Health Services?
No, Imagine Citizens Network is an Alberta-based, independent, citizen-led organization whose focus is on the priorities of citizens in the healthcare system. We have been working since 2015 to have important conversations to shift our healthcare system to become person-centred. We are non-partisan. We seek and welcome diverse voices and alternative points of view.
Who can see stories?
Once a story has been moderated and published, it becomes visible on the website for anyone to see. It will remain visible to the public on the Care Opinion Canada website unless the author decides to withdraw their story. In some exceptional circumstances, Care Opinion Canada will also withdraw the story.