Wait Times
Shorter Wait times are just a click away
Ontario website designed to improve access to hospital services
The Wait Times website can be found here.
Brantford Expositor, Tuesday, October 25, 2005
Canada Press with files from Vincent Ball
A website the Liberal government hopes will help shorten hospital waiting lists and offer voters proof of shorter wait times will only end up forcing reluctant doctors to work even harder, the Ontario Medical Association said Monday.
As a result of the new site, family doctors will be forced to go to extra lengths on behalf of patients who are going to want to use the resource to find a hospital with the shortest wait, said association president Dr. Greg Flynn.
"I'm concerned about my members and the extra onus that will be placed on family doctors to hunt for a place that's acceptable to all parties to have the work done," Flynn said.
"It's not feasible for a family doc to expand the amount of time they're spending on telephones trying to reach a surgeon who will do it in a shorter wait time."
The list can be accessed by visiting www.health.gov.on.ca and clicking on the wait times link.
Rick Woodcock, the president and CEO of the Brant Community Healthcare System, approves of the government's wait time website.
But the benefits won't be seen immediately and that could prove frustrating for patients. The information concerning wait times will be available but at this point, patients won't likely be able to do much with it Woodcock said.
Doctors, not hospitals, refer patients to other doctors for surgery, Woodcock said. Patients who want to switch doctors because they are on a longer than expected waiting list need to realize that the whole process starts again once they make the switch.
Still, he's glad the health ministry has set up the website because it has the potential to provide benefits to patients as well as the local healthcare system.
"It's complicated," Woodcock said. "The information is new and we haven't learned to work with it yet."
Premier Dalton McGuinty described the website as a tool for patients and doctors to decide whether someone should leave their own community in order to have their cancer treatment or MRI scan done more quickly in another town or city.
The province, however, won't cover any additional travel expenses, he warned.
"It may be that the inconvenience associated with getting the procedure at the other hospital is greater than the inconvenience of just waiting," McGuinty said.
"That's something for the patient and their physician to consider."
The site, launched Monday, tracks wait times for five key medical procedures: cancer surgery, cardiac procedures, hip and knee replacements and MRI and CT scans. Waits are categorized by procedure, hospital and local health network.
McGuinty has repeatedly said Ontario voters will judge his government against the results they see in health care and education; the wait times website is seen as a key tool in providing voters with proof of what the Liberals hope will be measurable success.
"No government has ever been willing to be that transparent with respect to how we manage this particular issue," McGuinty said. "We've turned things around. We're making progress. Now's the time to accelerate that progress."
Hospitals will work hard to improve their provincial ranking if they are found to have longer that average waiting lists, he added.
"The public will now be able to compare one hospital with another hospital and beyond that, we will be able to make an assessment where we should be deploying resources," he said.
"Inevitably, there'll be pressure to perform and get your wait times down."
Woodcock said local hospital officials will be reviewing the information to see what they can do to improve local wait times, he said.
It could be a matter of implementing some new procedures or processes or there could be some budget decisions, Woodcock said.
It will also help the Local Health Integration Network which includes Hamilton, Niagara, Brant and Haldimand, make decisions and develop systems with repect to procedures that will benefit patients, Woodcock said.
In the future, it's possible patients will take more control over the process by requesting a referral to a specific surgeon based on wait times, Woodcock acknowledged. That is already happening on an informal basis, he said, adding that he spoke to one person who went to Hamilton for a procedure that is offered in Brantford.
The person made the decision because the wait time for the procedure here was longer than in Hamilton, Woodcock said.
The Ontario Hospital Association, meanwhile, said the wait time data will allow all facilities to operate from the same information and better manage their wait lists.
The Conservatives called the website a "blatant attempt to divert attention" from the fact that the Liberals haven't kept their promise to reduce wait times, and said it won't help many older people waiting for hip and knee replacements or a CT scan.