ER waits improving but more work to be done
Patient wait times have improved since last year in both major urban centres
Progress is being made, but emergency room patients continue to wait for hospital beds in Regina and Saskatoon because of a clogged health-care system.
Sometimes there are spikes when new patients are entering the major hospitals faster than existing patients are leaving. This causes hospitals to be over capacity. The side-effect is that patients are treated in the ER’s hallways or have long waits for care.
Both of Regina’s two emergency rooms have 33 treatment spaces. In addition, there are 10 stretchers plus 10 recliners for a total of 53 spaces in each ER.
By mid-morning on Friday, the Pasqua ER had 23 patients, five waiting for an in-patient bed. Over at Regina General Hospital, there were 49 patients in the ER, four waiting for a bed on a ward.
However, wait times have decreased at Regina and Saskatoon hospitals.
People admitted to Regina’s hospitals wait 26.5 hours from the time they are triaged in the ER to when they get a hospital bed. In Saskatoon, the wait is just over 30 hours, said Tami Denomie, executive director of the strategic priorities branch of the Ministry of Health.
That is a decrease from last year, when the wait to be admitted from the ER to a bed in Regina’s hospitals was 30.5 hours and just under 40 hours in Saskatoon.
Patients who come into the emergency department and are discharged wait 9.5 hours in Regina and just over 7.5 hours in Saskatoon.
Luke Jackiw, director of hospital and specialized services with the acute and emergency services branch at the Ministry of Health, recognizes there continue to be bed pressures in the major centres.
However, he noted that over the past 10 years, Saskatchewan’s population has increased by more than 17 per cent or about 166,000 people.
“We have increased our acutecare beds in the province by 15 per cent or more — approximately 204 beds in our largest facilities specifically in response to that,” Jackiw said.
When asked if there will be a further increase of hospital beds, he said it’s something officials would continue to look at, but added there has been a change in how care is now being delivered.
“It’s not so much facility based any more,” Jackiw said. “We’re really trying to push towards more of a community care model and allow people to age at home and provide palliative services and other services in the community.”
In last year’s provincial budget, $12 million was allocated to reduce emergency department waits.
One of the initiatives to decrease stress on the ER was the creation of more accountable care units, which shorten the length of hospital stays.
Co-led by a nurse and physician, a team of health-care professionals includes patients and families when they do daily rounds at the units.
In most cases, the same team works with patients on a daily basis so they can identify their needs prior to when they move out of hospital.
By shifting care from Regina’s hospitals into the community, there was a 35 per cent decrease in the time people waited for an in-patient bed between April 2017 and January, Denomie noted.
Last year in Saskatoon, between April and November, there was a 22 per cent decrease in waits as a result of the accountable care unit.
“We were able to move patients out of those units and get folks that were in the emergency department up to those units faster,” Denomie said.
The accountable care units cost between $500,000 and $600,000 per unit annually.
Currently Pasqua Hospital has four accountable care units and there is one at St. Paul’s Hospital in Saskatoon with a couple more on the drawing board.
The length of stay dropped from 19 per cent to 15 per cent in the accountable care units, easing hospital overcapacity pressures.
“We’re pleased that we’ve seen some really good progress in Regina towards our target of reducing emergency department waits,” Denomie said.
“I think as we continue to work with the hospitals in establishing those processes, but importantly enhancing the services in the community, is where we’re really going to start to see the shift change and ensure patients are getting care closer to home and within the community where they live.”