Red Deer’s hospital has the longest average wait time to admit emergency patients of any of Alberta’s regional hospitals.
Red Deer patients waited an median average of 9.1 hours before being admitted, compared to 4.6 hours in Lethbridge, 4.4 hours in Medicine Hat, 4.0 hours in Fort McMurray and 7.3 in Grande Prairie, according to Alberta Health Services Performance Report for the third quarter of 2009-10.
The median average means half the patients waited longer than 9.1 hours in Red Deer and half had shorter waits.
Sylvia Barron, director emergency and critical care at Red Deer Regional Hospital Centre, said the wait time is constantly monitored and the hospital continues to work to reduce the wait.
“It’s been a problem we’ve been working on for a long time. There’s no one solution that’s going to work. It’s a multitude of things,” Barron said on Monday.
The hospital will try to reduce the wait to eight hours this year. That target has been achieved only a few times in past years, she said.
“I would say in a couple of years we’d like to even get down to as low as six hours.”
In 2008-09, Red Deer had an overall median average wait time of 10.6 hours. Lethbridge patients waited 4.8 hours. In Medicine Hat it was 4.7 hours, Fort McMurray was 4.7 and Grande Prairie was 6.7.
Elsewhere in 2008-09, Edmonton’s University of Alberta Hospital was at 17.3 hours and Grey Nuns Community Hospital was 22.3 hours. Calgary’s Foothills Medical Centre was 13.3.
Barron said in Red Deer, it’s a “hospital-system issue” rather than a need for more beds or staff and the hospital has made recent changes to get patients back into the community quicker.
Some staff at the hospital have been reassigned so there is now a discharge planner with each unit. Several calls often need to be made to co-ordinate home care for patients and planners will make discharge run more efficiently, she said.
“Sometimes it’s a complicated process to get them back home.”
Home care workers with Emergency to Home: Seniors Journey to the Right Care hospital program, which started earlier this year, also assists seniors.
“They see almost every patient who comes into the emergency department that’s over 65 years old to see if there’s anything we can do in relation to home care and if there’s any help they need getting back into the community.”
The program runs during the week and on weekends.
Barron said once Extendicare Michener Hill is open to full capacity, it will make a big difference at the hospital where patients are waiting for long-term care beds.
szielinski@www.reddeeradvocate.com