Matter of priority
Nova Scotia’s auditor general says the provincial website to register for family doctors is of limited use.
The Nova Scotia Health Authority needs to find a way to ensure people with serious health concerns who’ve registered on a provincial website are actually connected with a doctor, the province’s auditor general says.
Michael Pickup’s report says the provincial web site where people can register to indicate they need a family doctor is of limited usefulness as there is no priority based on health history or the person’s condition.
“That means anyone with a serious health condition is not placed higher on the list,” says the report.
The health authority can’t accurately assess people over the telephone, it says.
As of Sept. 1, there were almost 36,000 people registered online with the health authority’s “Need a Family Practice” registry, about four per cent of the province’s population.
The health authority encourages doctors to use the list to obtain new patients, but they aren’t required to choose new patients from the list.
The audit, on the performance of the health authority and the Health Department, also says the government has generally done a poor job telling the public about its plans for primary care, despite growing concern over a lack of access to doctors.
“Department and health authority websites have some information on plans for primary care. However, neither website provides clear and well-organized information about the ongoing work being done,” it says.
Pickup recommends that the province bring in a communications plan that will inform people on what the goals are for doctor recruitment and when people should expect the services.
He says the existing website is inadequate and confusing when it comes to explaining the shift away from individual physicians to collaborative clinics.
The auditor is also criticizing health officials for failing to provide clear benchmarks for plans to find hundreds of new doctors over the next decade.
He says health officials should be able to provide regular updates in areas such as the number of visits by potential doctors to communities with vacancies, offers made, and offers accepted.
“A combination of indicators such as these could assist the health authority in assessing the effectiveness of recruitment efforts,” the auditor wrote.
The audit says the latest forecasts by the province and health authority say Nova Scotia will need 512 additional doctors over the next decade.
It also says the province still doesn’t have a clear, provincewide plan on how to deliver mental health services, even though work on such a plan started in late 2015.
Pickup says the approach to mental health care across the province is not consistent and has led to significant variations in wait time standards, eligibility criteria, and in how clients are assessed.