CALGARY – One year after opening its doors, a Calgary knee injury clinic is offering effective and fast care but continues to be underutilized, says the clinic’s founder.
Dr. Nick Mahtadi opened the Acute Knee Injury Clinic at the University of Calgary in December, 2010 in an effort to improve patient care, lower costs and reduce health system pressure.
“As a specialist that takes care of people who have injured their knees and require surgery it was very obvious that people weren’t getting good enough access through the system,” says Dr. Mahtadi.
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The orthopaedic surgeon began training athletic therapists to properly assess knee injuries to determine what treatment was needed.
He also offered those with knee injuries access to the clinic without a doctor’s referral.
“I think it’s gone very well. The patients are well serviced; our initial reports seem to reveal that they are satisfied with what we’re doing.”
966 patients have come to the clinic in the last year receiving direct access to care without having to get potentially unnecessary tests. Treatment has shortly followed; any necessary surgeries have happened within four months.
The only problem, says Dr. Mahtadi, is the program has been underutilized because many Albertans just don’t know about it.
“Our goal was to see 1,800 new patients in a year which was a very lofty goal and so far we’re about two thirds capacity.”
Alberta Health Services funded the program for its first year. Dr. Mahtadi is hoping that funding will be extended and the clinic can eventually expand to also treat shoulder injuries.
For more information on the clinic visit www.sportmed.ucalgary.ca/akic.
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