The Winnipeg Regional Health Authority was advised by the Wait Time Task Force to slow down the emergency room closures of Seven Oaks and Concordia hospitals.
The authors of the 384-page report recommend that emergency rooms at Seven Oaks and Concordia close in a staggered fashion to lessen the impact on patient care. Originally both facilities were slated to lose their ERs by Spring/Summer 2018.
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The WRHA announced today that they expect it will take the entire 24 months from when it was first announced in April 2017 for the closures to take effect in both hospitals. Originally they had predicted 6 to 24 months.
[jaw_quote author=”Health, Seniors and Active Living Minister Kelvin Goertzen” ]Change is necessary if we are going to improve the services available to Manitobans[/jaw_quote][jaw_clear]
The report also analyzed the waits and delays for major surgeries like hip and knee replacements, cataract surgery and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI).
In the case of MRIs, it is recommended that increasing the hours of operation to 16 hours per day across the existing MRI units will eliminate the backlog and eliminate the need for more machines in the province.
The report recommends better education for providers surrounding the appropriate ordering of tests and implementing standardized referral and operational processes.
The committee also recommends the enhanced use of Telehealth for communicating with patients in remote locations for follow up appointments.
Other key findings of the review include the need to:
• address ongoing challenges related to physician burnout, recruitment and retention and ED suspensions;
• improve coordination of land and air emergency medical services (EMS);
• implement rapid assessment zones, a dedicated space where patients are quickly assessed pending tests and/or reassessment;
• develop more proactive mental health-care services to reduce reliance on emergency departments;
• implement protocols to allow paramedics to bypass local facilities for conditions such as trauma, acute stroke or obstetrical emergencies requiring specialized care at larger, urban sites;
• develop and use diagnostic testing protocols in all regions;
• develop a provincial central intake process for certain services to improve access, reduce wait times and analyze the true capacity of the system by using existing resources and people more efficiently.
“The findings of this report are in many ways consistent with the recommendations of the large volume of work that is informing our efforts to create a more integrated provincial planning process,” said Dr. Brock Wright, CEO of Shared Health. “Patients are – and will remain – at the centre of our development of a clinical and preventive services plan for Manitoba.
You can read the full report below
-Staff-
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