TORONTO – An initiative by a Kitchener-area hospital to reduce emergency room wait times by publishing estimates online is showing results – and soon may be spreading across southern Ontario.
St. Mary’s General Hospital began posting wait times online in April, and now the project may be opening at a Windsor hospital as well.
“The number one question we get in the emergency department is how long is the wait going to be to see a physician or nurse practitioner?” said Don Shilton, resident at St. Mary’s General Hospital. “Working with Oculys we were actually able to answer that question.”
Oculys, the system predicting wait times, predicts with 90 per cent accuracy how long the wait will be to see a physician or nurse-practitioner in the emergency department, according to Shilton.
The system also projects what the wait times will be for the following six hours.
Oculys is targeted at “level 4 or 5” patients, according to Shilton – levels at which injuries are not considered serious – including the flu, stomach aches, and cuts.
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“For example, the mother of a child who has an ear ache, they can’t get in to see their doctor,” said Landon West, a nurse-practitioner at St. Mary’s General Hospital. “They could access the website, look at the length of time, and make a decision based on that length of time whether it would be better to come in the morning, afternoon or evening.”
Since the program’s April launch, Shilton said, the hospital has seen a marked decrease in the amount of non-critical patients coming to the emergency department.
West told Global News that when patients know how long they may be waiting, it allows them to make a better decision about their own health care.
“I think it gives people the opportunity to make an educated decision about their care before coming in.” West said.
Oculys also provides people with information regarding alternative places of treatment including clinics, and other urgent care centres nearby.
Though Dr. Howard Ovens, the Toronto central LHIN lead for emergency medicine of Toronto central, and associate professor at the University of Toronto thinks that the Oculys system can hold tragic results if misused.
“If even one person looks at one of these apps and makes an unfortunate decision to delay their care as a result.” Dr. Ovens said. “I think that is a tragedy we can avoid and of course, the person who should decide how urgent that patient’s problem is, is the triage nurse when they arrive at the emergency department.”
Franck Hivert, President and CEO of Oculys, the company that produces the wait-time information, says that a number of other hospitals in southern Ontario could soon implement the Oculys system.
“Hotel Dieu Grace hospital in Windsor, we’re currently working with them and we’re looking to launch that in fall of this year,” Hivert said. “We’re also in serious discussions with four other hospitals in the region, and we’re speaking with 15 other hospitals.”
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