Regina Qu'Appelle Health Region lagging on targets
CBC News | Posted: November 18, 2016 2:55 AM | Last Updated: November 18, 2016
Region expects number of people awaiting surgery to grow
The Regina Qu'Appelle Health Region is not meeting a number of key targets, according to the latest report from officials.
The report, which is updated every three months, notes that the region currently has a $6.6-million deficit on an annual budget of just over $1 billion.
Also highlighted in the report:
- The number of patients waiting longer than three months for their surgery has been growing and is expected to continue to grow. At the end of March, there were 1,934 patients waiting longer than three months for surgery. Six months later, that number was 2,859. Officials are predicting the figure will reach at least 3,500 by the end of the year.
- Targets to reduce the amount of time patients spend in the emergency department are not being met. The report noted that instead of reductions in the time spent, the length of stay has been on an upward trend. Currently, nine out of 10 patients are spending between 10 and 15 hours in the emergency department. The time is measured from registration to discharge or departure to an inpatient unit. The goal is to have 90 per cent of patients tended to within 7.75 hours.
"We're working hard to align the resources we have with the services that we need to deliver," Keith Dewar, the region's CEO, said Thursday. "That does, at times, result in some increased wait times, because the funding is not there."
Dewar added that the amount of growth in the region was not expected.
"The reduction of funding was compounded by an unanticipated growth in demand in this last year," he said. "You can predict growth of a certain level, but it grew by about five per cent, which is larger than you would expect."
According to officials, almost 50,000 people moved into the region in the past decade.
The region is hoping a variety of economic efficiencies will trim the financial deficit and new workflow systems will improve wait times.