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Southlake Introduces New Patient Process To Further Reduce Wait Times In Its Emergency Department

Newmarket, Ontario — June 22, 2011:  The nurses, doctors, and management team of Southlake Regional Health Centre’s Emergency Department are constantly looking for new ways to improve their service delivery model and reduce the time patients spend waiting to receive medical attention.

On June 6, 2011, a new patient process was implemented at Southlake, and now when patients come into the Emergency Department they will be assessed by a Registered Nurse (i.e. triaged) as before and now they will be immediately taken into a patient treatment area, rather than being directed to a congested waiting room where they may sit for several hours before seeing a doctor.

The current goal is to have every patient assessed by a physician in less than three hours after their arrival in the department, exceeding the provincially mandated goal of 3.6 hours. Southlake will continue to implement new changes to this process, with the ultimate goal of having every patient seen by a physician in less than one hour. Since the launch of the new process, 90 per cent of patients seen in the Emergency Department are experiencing a decrease in wait times of more than 90 minutes, an improvement of 43 per cent.

“We want to offer better and faster service to our patients. In emergency medicine, speed is a major factor in quality,” says Dr. Marko Duic, Chief, Department of Emergency Medicine. “In some cases, the longer patients wait to be seen, the more likely they will experience adverse outcomes, so this new process is a major quality initiative. As well, people coming for less major emergencies will likely be pleased to be in and out of the emergency room so quickly.”

This new process is part of Southlake’s Emergency Departments constant initiative to maintain, and increase satisfaction rates within the hospital. Patients of Southlake are randomly selected to fill out Patient Satisfaction Indicators and 81 per cent of them have consistently rated the overall quality of care and service of Southlake’s Emergency Department as good, very good, or excellent with over 31 per cent of patients giving the department the highest possible rating of excellent in the last quarter of 2010.

“We will continue to incorporate new changes to this process and give our patients the quick and professional care they require,” continues Dr. Duic. “We want to continue to hold Ontario’s highest patient satisfaction rating by providing the highest possible quality of care. We were already well on our way in patient satisfaction even before this change.” 

“At Southlake the quality of patient care is of upmost importance to us,” said Helena Hutton, Vice President, Department of Emergency Medicine. “Our goal is to reduce wait times for our patients. However, we will continue to take the time we need to accommodate patients who require difficult treatments and need advanced testing.”

About Southlake Regional Health Centre
Based in Newmarket, Southlake Regional Health Centre is a full-service hospital with a provincial mandate to deliver advanced diagnostic and treatment services in cancer care, cardiac care, thoracic surgery, pediatric and perinatal care, child and adolescent eating disorders, and child and adolescent mental health care. It also specializes in arthritis care and cataract surgery. Serving more than one million residents of York Region and South Simcoe, Southlake is in the process of transitioning to a teaching and research centre.  From 2009-2010, Southlake had a total of 73, 337 emergency visits, an increase of over 3000 from the previous year. Currently, 2800 staff, 460 physicians, 600 students, and 800 community residents work, practice or volunteer at Southlake.

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