Prh Developing Innovative Solutions To Reduce Er Wait Times

PRH Developing Innovative Solutions To Reduce ER Wait Times FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE February 25, 2009 PEMBROKE – The Pembroke Regional Hospital hopes the implementation of several strategies, including the creation of transitional care beds for patients awaiting long-term care placement, will help to reduce higher-thanaverage emergency department wait times for people presenting to the emergency department (ED) with complex conditions. Last week, for the first time, the Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care began publicly reporting emergency department (ED) lengths of stay (LOS) for all medium and high volume hospitals in the province. In Eastern Ontario, the Pembroke Regional Hospital had the third highest emergency department wait times for complex conditions at 27.8 hours, more than double the provincial average of 13.5 hours. For people coming to the emergency with more minor conditions, the wait time at PRH was at the provincial average of 4.6 hours, slightly exceeding the provincial target of 4 hours. “Not surprisingly, our ED wait times for complex conditions are much higher than the baseline due, in large part, to the number of our beds occupied by alternate level of care (ALC) patients,” said Hospital President and CEO Pierre Noel. "These wait times represent the time that the sickest of our patients wait from the time they arrive in the emergency department until admission to a bed or discharge and, while much of this time is productive time accessing and interpreting various tests, some of the time is spent simply waiting for a bed to become available" said Mr. Noel. Currently, on average, 25 of the Hospital’s 71 acute medical beds are occupied by patients awaiting long-term care placement and are not available for new admissions from the emergency department. As well as causing long wait times for complex patients, the constant overoccupancy of medical beds leads to medical patients occupying beds in other acute and non-acute programs and, at times, the cancellation of surgical cases. Mr. Noel said that while, clearly, the wait times in emergency are longer than anyone would like and they have been presenting challenges at the Hospital for some time now, improvements are being made and several strategies are being explored to help decrease them. 1

One of these strategies is the development of 30 transitional care beds to be operated by Marianhill in renovated space at the Marguerite Centre. To be cost-shared by PRH and the Champlain Local Health Integration Network (LHIN), final approval of the proposal is expected this week. If approved, Mr. Noel said 16 ALC patients could be transferred within three months and an additional 14 could be moved about three months later. “This initiative would fundamentally change the situation in the Hospital, alleviating bed pressures and improving flow between our emergency department and our inpatient units,” Mr. Noel said. Dr. Michael Ferri, the Hospital's Chief of Staff, said other factors are contributing to the higher wait times including a shortage of family physicians in the area, the age and condition of the population being served and the complexity of patients presenting to an active regional centre. “While we are taking steps to improve the situation, the challenges we are facing are complex and can’t be solved overnight. In the meantime we want to thank our patients and their families for enduring some of the longer wait times and we want to thank our staff and physicians for providing exceptional care and compassion, often in crowded conditions,” Dr. Ferri said. Mr. Noel concluded that, "No one likes to wait longer than necessary to receive the care they need and we certainly will be doing everything in our power to ensure that the people of our area receive high quality emergency care in a timely way."

FOR MORE INFORMATION, PLEASE CONTACT: Carolyn Levesque Public Affairs and Communications Coordinator (613) 732-3675, ext. 6165 / [email protected]

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