CORNWALL, Ontario – The Cornwall Community Hospital (CCH) says that it recognizes that wait times in its Emergency Room (ER) have increased in recent years and state that they are taking steps to address this issue.
According to Jeanette Despatie, the CCH’s President and CEO, the ER sees between 120 to 190 patients every day and that nine-out-of-10 of those patients wait between six and nine hours.
That wait time is measured from the time the patient sees a triage nurse until the time they leave the department.
The busiest time of day for the ER is between 6 p.m. and 10 p.m. with the busiest day of the week being Monday.
Volume is just one of the factors that determines the wait time in the ER at the CCH. The type of cases present in the ER, tests or consultations patients might need and number of available doctors all affect wait times.
The number of available ER doctors is not something in the CCH’s full control.
“The physicians are not employees of the hospital,” said Despatie in an email to Seaway News. “The group of specifically trained emergency physicians are allocated (by the province) a number of hours for a 24-hour period and they determine the coverage model based on these hours. For example, over a 24-hour period we might have 60 hours of coverage – allowing for two-to-five physicians on duty at busy times and reduce the numbers when visits drop, for example overnight.”
Despatie went onto explain that it is not always possible to predict ER demand and that increased demand at on time, might affect the number of physician hours they have available at a later time.
“While all of these factors can impact the wait time on any given day this has been identified as a key performance indicator that needs to improve and many teams have come together in an effort to impact this wait for patients,” wrote Despatie. “We would like to reduce the variability as much as possible. Our wait times have increased over the past few years and we want to improve this.”
Despatie listed the following initiatives that the CCH is working on to reduce ER wait times.
- Improving triage efficiencies – therefore reducing the time to triage and throughput – this includes further education, training and reviewing workflows;
- Improving the process for patients returning from the Diagnostic Imaging department
- Reviewing and improving processes to transfer admitted patients to the inpatient area – therefore, maximizing the resources within the emergency;
- Reviewing with the Emergency physicians how to impact their efficiencies; including the potential introduction of a physician assistant at busy times in the department.
