Some Nova Scotians will now have a better idea of how long they’ll have to wait before accessing care when arriving at a hospital.
On Tuesday, Nova Scotia Health launched a new “information tool” online to offer the public access to live wait-time estimates at 10 different emergency departments throughout the province.
Some of the hospitals include the QEII Halifax Infirmary Site, Dartmouth General Hospital, and the Cape Breton Regional Hospital in Sydney.
“A trip to the emergency department can be frightening, particularly when you don’t know how long it will take to get the care you need. That’s why we want to be transparent with Nova Scotians about wait times,” said Khalehla Perrault, a spokesperson for the province’s Department of Health and Wellness.
As of 4 p.m. on Thursday, the wait time provided for the Dartmouth General Hospital was ranging between one hour and 15 minutes to three hours and 30 minutes, with the emergency department in Sydney showing a wait time of up to six hours.
Alexandra Rose, a provincial coordinator for the Nova Scotia Health Coalition, which is a group focused on strengthening public health policy, said the new online service is “definitely a positive, but isn’t a solution.”
She said allowing the public to access waiting periods for several hospitals could offer insight into other options in nearby communities where the wait may be shorter if a patient has the means to make the trip.
Despite the positives, Rose said there are concerns that this service could also cause patients to decide against seeking care altogether if the data indicates their local hospital is dealing with long wait times.
“If they do not have the means to travel themselves, they don’t have a car … this will deter them from seeking the care they need because not every health-care issue can be solved by a telehealth service or even access to a walk-in clinic.”
Elizabeth Smith-McCrossin, an Independent MLA for Cumberland North, said she was “really pleased” to see the launch of the service, as she recently presented a bill in the provincial legislature that looked to make emergency room and ambulance wait times more accessible to the public.
She said the bill was dubbed “Ali’s bill” and was drafted following the death of Allison Holthoff, a 37-year-old woman who died after a seven-hour wait at the emergency department in Cumberland County.
McCrossin said Holthoff’s husband asked for these requests to be included in the bill.
“He told me very clearly that if he had known the length of time that he was going to have to wait to have his wife assessed, he would have gone to a different hospital. He would’ve made a decision that day that possibly would’ve meant that his wife would be still with us here today,” she said.
She said that although the bill didn’t end up passing, she hopes that the province continues to build on these recent developments by also providing ambulance wait times to the public.
“If people knew the length of time that they were going to have to wait … they can make more informed and educated decisions when accessing emergency services,” she said.
“We want to find a way to prevent unnecessary deaths in our emergency department.”
Dr. Jan Sommers, an emergency physician and head of emergency medicine in the province’s northern zone, said this service is a “shift in the paradigm of providing information to patients.”
“I’m hoping that having this information so that people can make an informed choice and know what to expect will be helpful.” She continued, “I will say that no technology is perfect, and things can change really quickly in an emergency setting, so no one should use these as ‘rock solid’ guarantees.”
Sommers stressed that she doesn’t want the service to be used to determine whether or not a patient will seek care during a life-threatening emergency.
“This is an effort to be transparent, to provide patients with information, but is really intended to help those with less urgent care needs in deciding whether or not to seek care for that particular problem on that day.”
According to a release from the province on Tuesday, the predicted wait times for the select emergency departments are based on recently provided data.
“Due to changing demands in emergency departments, these wait times are not guaranteed and may not be the time a person will need to wait once they arrive,” the statement read.
McCrossin said she hopes the numbers provided online are accurately represented, as people will otherwise continue to lose faith in the province’s health-care system.
“It’s very important that the information that’s shared is truthful,” she said. “If it says the wait time is two hours and then people go (to the emergency department) and it’s ten hours, people will soon lose faith in that.”
In a statement to Global News, Nova Scotia Health Authority spokesperson Brendan Elliot shared how the estimates are currently being generated.
“The wait time predictions are calculated using historical and current emergency department data, such as the number of arrivals, acuity of patients, historical wait times and the number of physicians,” he said.
The province said wait times for additional hospitals will be added to the platform over time.