Budget money should relieve ER pressures
Regina, Saskatoon hospitals to get help to improve patient flow, cut wait times
It’s a familiar scenario — emergency rooms at the Pasqua and Regina General hospitals continue to be under pressure.
On Friday, 12 patients were waiting in the General’s ER for beds on wards because the hospital occupancy was at 104 per cent. Over at the Pasqua, four patients were waiting in the ER for beds. That hospital was at 102 per cent occupancy.
Overcrowding at the two hospitals has been an ongoing issue — particularly between January and March when there is a surge of patients.
In mid-February, the Pasqua was at 118 per cent capacity and the General was at 100 per cent. On Valentine’s Day, nine patients were on stretchers in the Pasqua’s ER hallways waiting for beds and four were on stretchers in the General’s ER hallways.
To ease overcapacity and emergency department wait times — ongoing headaches at Regina and Saskatoon hospitals — $12 million was targeted in the provincial budget for the two centres.
How the money is split between Regina and Saskatoon and how it will be used has not been determined yet, said Health Minister Jim Reiter.
Some will likely expand the work done on Unit 4A at the Pasqua Hospital, which was the first unit in Canada to pilot an Accountable Care Unit (ACU) — a team-based approach to patient care. The multidisciplinary team, co-led by a unit nurse and physician, do regular bedside rounds involving patients and their families.
The ER funding will also be used to improve patient flow and treat patients with chronic conditions, Reiter said.
“It could be pilot projects to see what we can do about easing the stress on our emergency departments and also admissions to the tertiary centres,” he said.
The $12 million in funding isn’t enough to set up an urgent care centre — or is it?
“We have some Accountable Care Units that we could look at expanding and doing more with and potentially branching them out into that kind of centre,” Reiter said. “Our officials are going to work with the two health regions and see what we can come up with to try and advance that.”
A fundamental premise of the Accountable Care Unit is that hospital care is appropriate and people are hospitalized only for as long as they need to be, said Keith Dewar, CEO of the Regina Qu’Appelle Health Region.
“When it’s fully implemented, we’ll ensure that occurs across our system, not just in RQHR, but the province,” he said.
Dewar emphasized it takes time to connect Accountable Care Unit work with primary care networks to develop the right approach for patients and to find the right staff.
“As an organization, we’ve been building a model and a vision around how we deliver care in hospital and the community over a number of years,” he said. “My hope is, as we work our way through this, that this money will increase the pace of that work as opposed to change the direction of that work.”
Wednesday’s health budget also included $24.4 million to ease increased demands on the health care system, which are partly because of the growing population and changing demographics.
Dr. Intheran Pillay, president of the Saskatchewan Medical Association (SMA), echoed Dewar’s observation that transforming the large and complex health care system must be done thoughtfully and improvements don’t happen overnight.
He welcomed the additional funding to relieve the stress on emergency departments.
“The ER overcapacity is a huge problem in our regional and tertiary centres,” Pillay said. “I think it’s wise to allocate funds to help solve that problem.”