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

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 online 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 dis- cusses how this sample was obtained, and describes the survey implementation process.