Doctors offices need to use triage system

Editor: I read with interest the commentary by Sandra Banner, Foreign Medical Schools can solve Canada’s Doctor Shortage,

The article was excellent. The only problem; there is no doctor shortage in Canada. What we face is a mis-allocation of resources in a failed archaic inefficient medical system.

Research shows more than 50 per cent of visits to family doctors are not required. Why does this occur? It starts at the appointment. There is no accountability at the time of setting. Patients are booked based on perceived need generally by non-medical personal filling empty time slots. No priority of need is given.

The result: we have the wrong people, seeing the wrong medical personnel at the wrong time.

The solution is simple. Get rid of the current antiquated archaic and sometimes deadly appointment booking system.

Replace it with a triage system — the same one they use in emergency rooms — with the simple premise of getting the right resources to the right people at the right time.

All patients will walk in to their doctors office and meet with a highly-skilled triage nurse. This nurse will then determine, based on need, who gets to use our doctors’ valuable resources of time.

In this way, the right patients will see the right medical practitioner at the right time.

Too often people with no medical illness are tying up their doctor’s valuable time when others’ medical conditions are getting significantly worse due to the lapse in time between diagnosis and treatment.

I know this first hand as I almost died in five days waiting for my doctor’s visit.

This will free up valuable doctors’ time and eliminate the perceived doctors’ shortage.

Stephen Hill, Kelowna