Sask. ‘tames the queue’
Building on its success in trimming surgical wait times, the province is working on its next ambitious goal — ensuring no patient waits in an emergency department by 2017.
“We’re in the beginning stages of putting the team together, but the fact that we’ve been fairly successful around goals for surgery, has given us a lot of confidence that if we put the right people in place and think outside the box and we have a comprehensive strategy, that we can be just as successful in our emergency room initiative,” said Health Minister Dustin Duncan on Friday.
Saskatchewan received national recognition Thursday night for “taming the queue” and leading the country in reducing orthopedic surgical waits.
Duncan accepted an award of merit from the Canadian Orthopaedic Association at its annual conference of orthopedic surgeons in Winnipeg.
“It’s a great opportunity to recognize how far we’ve come on the surgical waits and how far we’ve come in reducing what were, in many cases, the longest waits in Canada,” he said Friday. “It’s nice to have an outside group send kudos Saskatchewan’s way.”
Dr. Geoffrey Johnston, president of the Canadian Orthopaedic Association, noted in a news release that he was encouraged by the Saskatchewan government’s commitment to “taming the queue by dismantling barriers to orthopedic patients’ timely access to surgical care.”
“This was achieved when all parties agreed to put the patient first, sharing information, communication and collaboration, and integrating improved models of care,” Johnston said. “I hope that other provinces will respond in kind.”
The number of Saskatchewan patients waiting more than six months for orthopedic surgery has dropped from 2,700 to 775 in the past three years.
Between Nov. 1 and April 30, 9,081 orthopedic surgeries were performed in Saskatchewan — of those 3,461 were in the Regina Qu’Appelle Health Region (RQHR) and 4,160 in the Saskatoon Health Region (SHR).
Of the RQHR surgeries, 2,494 were performed within six months and 3,819 orthopedic operations were completed in the SHR.
However, 4,623 Saskatchewan patients were still waiting for elective orthopedic surgeries as of April 30. Of those, 2,170 were RQHR patients and 2,027 were SHR patients.
The RQHR had 701 patients waiting longer than six months for orthopedic surgery while the SHR had 71 patients waiting longer than six months for orthopedic procedures.
Orthopedic surgeons from other parts of Canada told Duncan on Thursday night that they have taken note of Saskatchewan’s Surgical Initiative — everything from the use of pooled resources, third-party facilities and patient pathways.
“They really appreciated that we set targets to capture all surgeries, not just in particular areas,” Duncan said. “One surgeon said in his province the provincial government chose five areas and orthopedics wasn’t in that area, so then their strategy didn’t have a benefit for orthopedic surgeons or their patients.”
Last year, close to five per cent of surgeries were performed in third-party surgical centres.
“This year, we’ll probably be closer to 10 to 15 per cent of surgeries,” Duncan said. “It’s been an important part in clearing our backlogs, in dealing with outpatient procedures and arthroscopic surgeries.”
The latest wait time numbers show continued progress toward Saskatchewan’s goal of offering all surgical patients a procedure within three months.
As of April 30, 18,824 Saskatchewan patients were waiting for surgery, down from 26,739 in November 2007 and from 27,580 when the Surgical Initiative was launched in April 2010.
As a result of the province investing $70.5 million in surgical care in the 201314 fiscal year, about 89,000 surgeries will be performed this year, an increase of 7,000 from 2012.
“While the Surgical Initiative will formally wrap up in 2014, we’re going to work hard to make sure that the gains we’ve made on surgical wait times don’t slide back to where they were,” Duncan said.