EDMONTON – New figures released from the Canadian Institute for Health Information show people in the Edmonton area are waiting longer in the emergency room compared to the rest of Alberta and Canada.
The figures break down to wait times for an initial assessment in the ER and time spent in the ER after being admitted as a patient.
According to recently compiled figures, nine out of every 10 people going to an Edmonton Zone ER are seen by a doctor within four hours. The trend has been upward and is higher than Alberta where the wait time is 3.2 hours and Canada with a wait time of 3.1 hours.
The figures also show nine out of every 10 admitted patients spent just over 43 hours in the emergency room before being transferred. AHS says seasonal illness played a role last year, but there’s more.
“One of the major reasons was, it was the first year in a long time where we hadn’t added extra continuing care capacity in the Edmonton zone,” said Dr. David Mador, the medical director for northern Alberta for AHS.
“We’ve made tremendous strides in terms of getting patients through the emergency department better,” Mador said.
The statistics also show differences between the University Hospital and the Royal Alex compared to the Misericordia and Grey Nuns.
At the two smaller facilities, the wait time to initially see an ER doctor is shorter — 3.7 hours for the Misericordia and three hours for the Grey Nuns. At the University, the wait time is 4.5 hours and at the Royal Alex it’s 5.6.
READ MORE: Wait times for health care services vary across Canada: report
But at the smaller facilities (the Misericordia and Grey Nuns), patients are having to spend hours more in the ER after being admitted; just over 51 hours at the Misericordia and nearly 60 hours at the Grey Nuns, compared with just under 25 hours at the University and 27 hours at the Royal Alex.
“The level of demand that you have within a site; the volumes of people coming through the emergency department in relation to the total beds that you have do have a bearing on the ability to move people through,” said Jon Popowich with Covenant Health, which runs the smaller hospitals.
“Right now about nine per cent or so of our bed days in our hospitals are occupied by folks who shouldn’t be there,” Mador said.
There is good news, however. The data from the Canadian Institute for Health Information is historic, meaning it does not take into account year-to-date figures.
“In the analysis for this year, we’ve made quite a bit of improvement,” Mador told Global News. “We’ve managed to put into effect a lot of initiatives in the community so that we’re able to discharge more of our patients.”
AHS is confident of more community resources being made available to ease ER stresses.
Wait times at all emergency rooms across the Edmonton zone are posted online.
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