Long-term care wait in Ontario 'too long': report

People in Ontario continue to wait too long to be seenin emergency departments and to get a bed at a long-term care facility, according to a new report.

The Ontario Health Quality Council, an arm's length agency, released its fifth annual report on wait times for health services in the provinceon Thursday.

The report points to some reductions in wait times for surgeries but also highlights serious problemswith how patients move through the health care system.

"When only 53 per cent of urgent cancer cases are completed within the two-week target, when about one-quarter of people spend more time in the emergency department than is recommended and desirable and when the wait time for a long-term care bed is three times what it was in 2005, then it is obvious that the system has some significant issues to address," said council chairperson Lynn McLeod, a former leader of the Ontario LiberalParty.

'In many areas of care, too many people still wait too long.' Lynn McLeod, chair of Ontario Health Quality Council

"In many areas of care, too many people still wait too long."

The report confirmed the provincial government's reports of progress in reducing wait times for cardiovascular surgery, cataract surgeries and hip and knee replacements.

But patients admitted to hospital from the emergency department typically spend more than three hours waiting for a hospital bed after doctors decide to admit them. That can createa logjam for patients with less acute problems, the report's authors said.

Long-term care shortage worsened

People waiting for long-term care take up one of every six hospital beds, said the council's CEO, Dr. Ben Chan.

"They don't need all the services of a hospital, but they must stay there because they have nowhere else to go," Chan said. "This problem has gotten worse in the last two years."

The province, local health integration units, hospitals and community care access centres are working closely together "to bring down the number of people who are in hospital who don't need to be there, who would be better served outside the hospital," Health Minister Deb Matthews told the legislature.

The report included two hospital success stories.

Credit Valley Hospital in Mississauga reduced wait times for seriously ill patients while improving satisfaction ratings by streamlining work flow and the layout of the facility.

North York General in Toronto lowered the rate of returnvisitsto its emergency department from 55 per cent to 23 per cent by linking patientsup with health and social services in the community as soon as possible. Return visits were considered to be those madeanywhere from 29 days to six months after an initial visit.

Other key findings included:

• Wait times for "low-priority" MRI scans have more than doubled since 2004, and only one-third ofsuch scansare donewithin the recommendedtime despite a doubling in thenumber of scans being done in the last six years.
• The proportion of family doctors who have an electronic medical record system has risen from 26 per cent in 2007 to 43 per cent in 2009. Thislags behind countries, such as Australia and the Netherlands, where 95 to 99 per cent of family doctors have such as system.
• About 7.1 per cent of Ontarians age 18 or over about 730,000 people have no family doctor. About half of these people are actively looking for one.
• Almost nine in 10 Ontarians say they wait too long to see their doctor, an indicator that has gotten worse in the last three years.
• Rates of C. difficile, an infection common in hospitals, have been decreasing gradually over the past year, yetonly 53 per cent of health professionals wash their hands right before seeing a patient.

This year's report also looked at other hospital infections, maternal and child health and mental health services.