Tuesday, August 28, 2007
For the Attention of
Hospital Board Chairs, CEOs, CFOs, OHA Board of Directors
and CACN Members
Hilary Short
President and Chief Executive Officer
Emergency Department Wait Times
Yesterday, the Canadian Press reported that the Ontario Liberal Party’s campaign platform will include a plan to measure and ultimately reduce wait times at hospital emergency departments (ED). This report was confirmed by the OHA through discussions with key decision-makers in the Ontario Liberal Party.
The expansion of Ontario’s Wait Times Strategy to include ED wait-times is something that the Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care (MOHLTC) has been working toward for some time, and is consistent with recommendations made through the Hospital Emergency Department and Ambulance Effectiveness Working Group (Dr. Brian Schwartz, Chair), the joint OHA-OMA-MOHLTC Emergency Department Overcrowding Expert Working Group (Dr. Bob Bell, Dr. Janice Willet and John Oliver, Co-chairs), and in the OHA’s Inspiring Health Care Innovation policy document.
In October 2006, the MOHLTC announced that $142.2M would be spent to support a three-point Emergency Department Action Plan (EDAP) that included: i) initiatives to retain and recruit ED physicians and add physician assistants and nurse practitioners to EDs; ii) increased hospital capacity through an ED support fund, ED process improvements, more critical care beds, and funds for hospitals in small, rural and high growth areas; and iii) funds for more community-based services.
Earlier this month, the MOHLTC sent a letter to hospital CEOs indicating that, as part of the next phase of the EDAP and incorporating ED wait times into the Wait Time Strategy, hospitals with EDs will be required to implement an Emergency Department Information System (EDIS).
We understand that the EDlS will enable the province, Local Health Integration Networks (LHINs) and hospitals to monitor and improve access to and performance of Emergency Departments. The EDlS will be largely based on data which is already routinely collected by most hospitals. Patient-level data will be collected centrally and eventually publicly reported by individual hospitals, peer groups and LHINs. Similar to Ontario's Wait Time Information System (WTIS), this information will eventually be used to monitor progress towards targets.
Participation in the EDlS will become a condition of subsequent funding for Wait Time Strategy, and a requirement for hospitals to participate in any upcoming initiatives to improve emergency department wait times.
Matt Anderson, Chief Information Officer, University Health Network has been appointed as the Lead for the development and implementation of the EDIS. It is expected that Mr. Anderson and his team will be in contact with hospitals to provide details on the rollout and implementation strategy.
To date, no specific information has been shared with regard to funding for this project, either in terms of the development of the enterprise program or for hospitals in terms of the costs of its implementation (e.g., infrastructure, staffing and training costs.) The OHA is raising the potential issue of the additional costs to hospitals that implementing the EDIS could pose with the MOHLTC, and will continue our efforts to ensure that this initiative can be implemented as effectively as possible.
Should you have any questions about this Bulletin, please contact Sheila Tymstra, OHA Provincial Health Human Resources, by telephone at 416-205-1380 or email at stymstra@oha.com, or Anthony Jonker, OHA e-Health Strategies by telephone at 416-205-1601 or by email at ajonker@oha.com.