Paramedics are spending significantly less time at London hospitals waiting to offload patients, thanks to recent changes to how those arriving at the emergency room are handled.
London Health Sciences Centre (LHSC) is now triaging and transitioning all patients, regardless of how they arrive to the emergency department, immediately to one of three care spaces - a care space for physician assessment and treatment, a stretcher, or to a chair.
"Like many hospitals in the province, we have been seeing an increase in patients with more complex health conditions coming to our EDs (emergency departments) for quite some time, and we are continually finding new ways to make the best use of our space and staff to safely move patients through our EDs and across our hospitals,” said Dr. Christie MacDonald, the hospital network's physician department head of emergency medicine. “A visit to the EDs is going to look a little bit different for patients and families than it did previously, where depending on your condition you could potentially be moved from a paramedic stretcher to a chair in our waiting room, but these are important and safe changes that allow us to speed the availability of care to all patients arriving to our EDs.”
According to LHSC officials, since the change was enacted the wait time for paramedics to transfer patients into the care of the hospital has dropped by nearly 70 per cent. That means what would have previously been a 2-hour wait for paramedics is now taking less than 40 minutes. This allows paramedics to get back on the street to respond to 911 calls faster.
The initiative, which began in November, is supported by Ontario's Ministry of Health.
Other changes made to help improve ambulance offload times includes having staff elsewhere in the hospital flag when beds become available on patient floors more quickly, allowing emergency room patients to be admitted sooner. Once an available bed has been assigned, the unit expedites the transfer within 45-minutes, which in turn frees up space in the emergency department.
"Our team is pleased by what has been accomplished so far and we are focused on ensuring sustainability. We are excited to now consider other processes that streamline ED care for our patients and our families," said MacDonald.
What has not changed is the practice of seeing the most critically ill and injured patients first, hospital officials reassured. Emergency room wait times for Victoria Hospital in the south-end and University Hospital in the north-end can be found on LHSC's website.
