RVH’s ED wait times online; paramedic offloading twice as fast now
BARRIE — RVH hospital officials are working on two essential features to speed up care and treatement for the public.
Patients can now view real-time emergency department (ED) wait times for Royal Victoria Regional Health Centre (RVH) on the health centre’s website and in the ED waiting rooms.
And RVH and County of Simcoe Paramedics Services are working together to reduce ambulance offload wait times.
First, three large screens located in the emergency department of the hospital will display current wait times for those already waiting for care.
However, patients can also check wait times from any device by clicking on an icon on the home page of the RVH website to access the wait times page. On that page they will see:
— Total number of patients currently in Emergency
— The number of patients that have seen a physician and are being treated
— The number of patients that are waiting for initial physician assessment
— The estimated time it will take to see a physician (initial assessment)
“RVH has one of the busiest ED’s in the province, averaging 220 – 250 patients a day,” says Janice Skot, RVH president and CEO in a release.
“We are also experiencing unprecedented patient volumes and are well over 110 per cent capacity every day. It’s important we manage our communities’ expectations and to find ways to improve the patient experience and one way we can do this is providing access to estimated wait times in ED.”
On the website, there is also a graph showing when the ED will be busiest over the next six hours; a list of area walk-in/urgent care clinics; what to bring when coming to Emergency; and a reminder to call 911 in case of an emergency. The page is accessible through RVH’s home page at rvh.on.ca
The information is compiled through a highly sophisticated algorithm based on historical patient volumes and data, however, times are just estimates and any number of factors can affect these times such as acuity, mass accidents/casualties, unforeseen staffing shortages or environmental factors.
Paramedics offloading patients twice as fast
Secondly, meanwhile, working with paramedics they have significantly reduced the “Ambulance Offload Times.”
Ambulance Offload Times are measured from the moment a patient enters an emergency department (ED) by ambulance to the time when their care is transferred from paramedics to ED staff.
While the provincial average time sits at 54 minutes, RVH’s current offload times are less than half at an average of 25.6 minutes; and down from 45.7 minutes in 2016/17.
RVH and County of Simcoe Paramedics meet quarterly to review progress and update each other on any changes to either organization to ensure ambulance offload times remain a top priority.
Recently, RVH’s emergency department was recognized as a “most improved ambulance offload performer” by the Provincial Emergency Department Clinical lead, Dr. Howard Ovens.
As a result of this recognition, RVH will share its best practices and strategies with emergency departments across the province.
“RVH has one of the busiest emergency departments in the province, seeing more than 88,000 visits annually,” says Treva McCumber, vice president of patient programs and chief nursing executive at RVH.
“Yet despite an average monthly increase in patient visits, RVH saw a 26 per cent reduction in its Ambulance Offload Times. This significant reduction is due to excellent collaborative work between County of Simcoe Paramedics and RVH’s Emergency department team. It’s important work that’s having a positive outcome for our patients across the County.”
They credit this success to the collaborative efforts of staffing of a dedicated offload delay nurse, formalized daily communication channels between platoon supervisors and resource nurses who participate in a twice daily system status report, and enhanced patient tracking from ambulance arrival to patient transfer of care in the hospital.
“During the past five years County of Simcoe Paramedic Services has worked closely and collaboratively with our partners at RVH and other area hospitals to improve the flow of patients through the emergency department and reduce offload delays,” says Andrew Robert, director and chief of the County of Simcoe Paramedic Services.
“Our paramedics respond to more than 67,000 calls each year, and when seconds can make a difference in the lives of our residents the quicker paramedics can transfer care of their patients to hospital staff the quicker they can be available to respond to 911 calls in the community.”
