Watch above: Seven days in and seven to go, the Saskatoon Health Region says it’s 14 day challenge to alleviate overcrowding is working. Meaghan Craig takes a look at some of the challenges being overcome and what’s being considered moving forward.
SASKATOON – Health care providers are breathing a little easier as capacity issues ease. Tuesday marked the halfway point of the 14 day challenge in the Saskatoon Health Region (SHR).
The improvement initiative aims to eliminate hallway health care and reduce the amount of time it takes to be admitted to a unit.
A call to action was made by SHR officials following a crucial conversation with emergency department staff who were exhausted after a 12-week span of increased patient demand.
READ MORE: Surgeries postponed as Saskatoon hospitals deal with overcrowding
“Everybody was fatiguing. Overcapacity is not good for our patients, it’s not good for staff and it’s not good for physicians and everybody on the floor is just so excited to see that actually something is happening and they’re seeing results,” said Dr. George Pylypchuk, head of medicine at SHR.
This occurred after the region’s CEO Dan Florizone gave six teams, each led by a vice president, permission to develop and test ideas in their areas of focus.
“I think you could rename it, get rid of the ‘red tape challenge’ because one of the things our CEO has allowed us to do is he’s empowered us to make decisions and make decisions on the spot,” added Pylypchuk.
When the challenge first began, Florizone confirmed there were 85 patients being housed above and beyond the region’s normal bed capacity. Patients were being cared for in hallways and waiting in emergency rooms.
“It’s very difficult on our staff to provide care in such a setting. Awful for patients to have to be cared for, everything from appropriateness care, the access to not only a comfortable setting but privacy issues as well,” said Florizone on Feb. 4.
Since then, health officials with the region say those numbers have declined.
“Yesterday we were finally having more discharges than admissions so all of that overcapacity is starting to shrink down and we were at 59 patients above what we would be operating,” explained Sandra Blevins, vice-president of integrated health services for the SHR.
Health officials admit before now little things were becoming big things.
One example shared by Pylypchuk was a frustrated ward clerk at St. Paul’s Hospital over the weekend who couldn’t read the order a medical resident had written. She suggested that in order to save time, clerks be given a list of the resident physicians on-site and a sample of their handwriting so they could be tracked down quickly if they had questions.
“In the past we might look at this in a committee but in actual fact it sounds pretty logical that she should have that and she has it now,” said Pylypchuk.
Health officials say they will continue to identify bottlenecks and issues and see where improvements can be made. A predictive model is also in the works so the region can get ahead of any surges before they occur.
“Once we get down to a calm capacity level, we’ll be able to predict when these surges come and then deal with them when they come,” explained Pylypchuk
As for medical errors or deaths that may have occurred as a result of health care workers being overtired, Pylypchuk said all hospital deaths are reviewed and the last 50 will be subject to an in-depth review as early as next month.
Members of the public are also being asked to provide their feedback to the health region.
Comments