Improvement in wait times shown in hospital report

Ron Gagnon, Sault Area Hospital (SAH) president and CEO, is pleased with progress made in getting patients from triage to an inpatient bed in a shorter amount of time. 

The average length of stay for patients, from triage to an inpatient bed, for SAH’s fiscal year of Apr. 1, 2016 to Mar. 31, 2017 was 20.8 hours, and the average for March 2017 was 14.1 hours.

“We’ve improved and shortened the time that it takes between arriving at the emergency room and getting people to the right inpatient bed and the efforts that have been made around that,” Gagnon said.

“That, for me, would be the highlight of the (fiscal) year,” Gagnon told SooToday after Thursday’s SAH board of directors meeting.

Meanwhile, Gagnon said he is surprised at the low physician engagement rate in the organization’s latest Physician Engagement Survey, which was 56 per cent, lower than the SAH goal of 62 per cent. Physician participation in the survey is voluntary. 

The figure was one of many presented by Gagnon in his year end report to the SAH board of directors at their meeting Thursday.

Gagnon said the numbers don’t seem to match with what he sees in the hospital’s doctors on a daily basis.

“The one that surprised me was the physician engagement result.” 

“I’ve been here since 2001 and my own observation and feedback that I’ve had from physicians and others is this is the most engaged I have seen physicians in this organization, whether it’s from a leadership standpoint or participating in improvements, and to not see that reflected in the survey results is surprising.”

“I don’t have an explanation for it,” Gagnon said.

“To me it’s surprising because the activities and the actions that I see don’t line up with that.”

“The most important thing is…their actions (rather than their rate of participation in the survey) show me much more engagement, which is great for patients and its good for the organization.”

Gagnon said he is also interested in possible changes to the Ambulance Act.

The changes, if passed in the Ontario Legislature, would see paramedics being given the authority to treat and release or treat and refer patients to another type of medical facility (such as a day clinic) if necessary, instead of Sault Area Hospital.

As the law stands now, paramedics must transport all patients to hospitals.

The proposed changes to the Ambulance Act are designed in part to reduce pressure on hospital emergency rooms.   

“I look at it from a person perspective, from a patient perspective,” Gagnon said.

“If they’re able to get care closer to home it’s better for them, and to me that’s why our system exists, to give them care where they need it, and if it’s as close to home as possible even better.”

"If that’s what this results in, I think it’s great,” Gagnon said.