Design and implementation of a survey of senior Canadian healthcare decision-makers: Organization-wide resource allocation processes

Abstract

A three-year research project based in British Columbia, Canada, is attempting to develop a framework and tools to assist healthcare system decision-makers achieve "high performance" in resource allocation. In pursuit of this objective, a literature search was conducted and two phases of primary data collection are being undertaken: an on-line survey of senior healthcare decision-makers, and in-depth case studies of potential "high performing" organizations. This paper addresses the survey phase; our aim is to provide a practical example of the mechanics of survey design, of benefit to those who want to better understand our forthcoming results, but also as an aid to other researchers grappling with the hard choices and trade-offs involved in the survey development process. Survey content is described in light of the existing literature, with discussion of the choices made by the research team to decide what questions and items would be included and excluded. The target population for the survey was senior managers in Canadian regional health authorities (or the closest equivalent organizations) in each of the 10 provinces and 3 territories. The paper discusses how this sample was obtained, and describes the survey implementation process.

Decision maker perceptions of resource allocation processes in Canadian health care organizations: a national survey

“…The literature was reviewed to identify aspects of priority setting and resource allocation which are thought to be related to effectiveness, success or high performance; this informed the survey content as a whole. Questions were decided by the research team through iterative discussion; detailed discussion of question development is reported elsewhere [50]. The survey was organized in six main sections, with 22 questions in total: descriptive information about the respondents and their organizations (9 questions); an overview of current resource allocation practice (2 questions); organizational values applied to decision making (3 questions); specific factors and criteria considered in decision making (2 questions); organizational culture and context (2 questions); and overall assessment of resource allocation practice (4 questions).…”