Waiting times at CHUM 1: diagnostic imaging, hip and knee replacements,cardiac surgery, cancer care and sight restoration
Nasef M. Erickson LJ, Brophy J
Record ID 32007000612
French
Authors' objectives:
This report is the first in a series of studies which aim to determine and analyse wait times at the CHUM. These studies stem from a request from the director general (DG) which manifested a growing interest in the real wait times experienced by patients who required diagnostic procedures or therapeutic acts in the 5 priority areas determined by the Federal and Quebecois governments (diagnostic imaging, hip and knee replacements, cancer care, sight restoration and cardiac surgery).
Authors' recommendations:
We reached our goal to learn the real wait times experiences by patients waiting for care or diagnostic exams at the CHUM. Thus, we noted that emergency and urgent cases in the categories considered in this report have access to care very rapidly within required delays. However, access to care services is occasionally compromised for elective cases. Hereafter, we summarize our principal conclusions :
Long wait times exist for hip and knee replacements (arthroplasties) and knee arthroscopy
Waiting for diagnostic examinations at the departments of nuclear medicine and radiology is also long
Cardiac exams are generally delivered on time according to standards as is cardiac surgery. However, access to cardiologists is difficult, augmenting total wait times for these services
Considerable variation is noted in the waiting time involved in the delivery of the care in the three hospitals of the CHUM
Results for ophthalmology and radio-oncology are encouraging. Wait times for radiotherapy or cataract surgery have diminished a great deal during the last year to attain medically acceptable standards. The governmental investments devoted to reduce wait times in these two services have finally started to pay off for our patients
Finally, we stress the importance of investing the resources necessary to insure a continuous and accurate evaluation of wait times in order to ultimately ensure accessibility to health care within a reasonable time for our patients. Each patient has the right to know the wait time planned for his diagnostic exam or therapeutic intervention. Moreover, ideally, we should not have great differences between wait times recorded in the three hospitals of the CHUM for the same diagnostic examination or therapeutic intervention.
Authors' methods:
Review
Details
Project Status:
Completed
Year Published:
2007
English language abstract:
An English language summary is available
Publication Type:
Not Assigned
Country:
Canada
MeSH Terms
- Hospital Administration
- Waiting Lists
Contact
Organisation Name:
Centre Hospitalier de l'Universite de Montreal
Contact Address:
R4.14 Royal Victoria Hospital, av. des Pins Ouest, Montreal, Quebec H3A 1A1, Canada. Tel: 514-934-1934 ext. 36564 Fax: 514-843-1493
Contact Name:
lorraine.mines@muhc.mcgill.ca
Contact Email:
lorraine.mines@muhc.mcgill.ca
Copyright:
Centre Hospitalier de l'Universite de Montreal(CHUM)
This is a bibliographic record of a published health technology assessment from a member of INAHTA or other HTA producer. No evaluation of the quality of this assessment has been made for the HTA database.