GRH looking to reduce emergency wait times
Posted Sep 19, 2014 02:24:01 PM.
This article is more than 5 years old.
A mixed report for Waterloo Region’s hospitals when it comes to waits times, readmissions and deaths.
The Canadian Institute for Health Information has launched a new interactive tool called Your Health System that allows you to compare our hospitals to others across the country when it comes to a number of variables.
Grand River Hospital did do so well, with emergency wait times of seven hours.
Mark Karjaluoto, Director of Communications with GRH tells 570 News that in the past, the hospital has fared poorly compared to other hospitals when it comes to wait times in the emergency room.
“Two years ago, that was definitely the case; our emergency department performance wasn’t good. It’s got a lot better ever since and we still have more work to do. But, we have cut down that emergency department wait by about 35% and that is despite a 10% increase in the volume of patients that we’re seeing go through the department.”
He adds that the hospital has brought in a number of additional emergency department physicians.
“That certainly helped reduced the wait times. We have also set up a separate area in the department to handle people who are not well but are still mobile, can still walk, and try to tend to those people a little but quicker.”
He adds they looked at how to improve ambulance off-load times and tried to move that process along to get ambulances back on the roads as quickly as possible.
