Average ER wait time at Brandon hospital slightly longer than health authority’s target

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This article was published 09/12/2017 (2832 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The average time it takes to be seen in the emergency department of the Brandon Regional Health Centre is approximately two hours.

Data provided by Prairie Mountain Health (PMH) show that on a month-to-month basis from October 2016 to October 2017, people waited an average of 2.12 hours, slightly higher than the health authority’s target of two hours or less.

PMH CEO Penny Gilson said patients are seen depending on their triage level.

“People sometimes think first-in first-seen and that’s not the case,” she said.

“You actually are triaged according to the urgency of your presenting symptoms is how people are placed in priority of being seen.”

Gilson said in the last couple of weeks, the health centre has been at work installing a new electronic documentation system, which may result in longer waits.

But over time, she said the new technology should make the process more efficient.

Gilson added that people who have non-emergency symptoms should seek alternatives, such as walk-in clinics.

She said PMH will continue to watch ER volumes and staffing levels in order to keep wait times within a reasonable level.

“We’ve been monitoring them on a monthly basis and if we see changes, then we try to determine what’s contributing to the changes and try to mitigate any impacts on wait times.”

In November, the Canadian Institute for Health Information (CIHI) released a report saying the amount of time patients are spending in emergency departments (ED) in Canada has risen.

Nine out of 10 ED visits for admitted patients were completed within 32.6 hours between 2016 to 2017, meaning one out of 10 patients waited longer, representing a 3.3-hour increase from the previous year.

In Winnipeg, that number was 43.5 hours and nine out of 10 patients who went to a Winnipeg ER were also seen in 5.1 hours or less, slightly higher than the national average.

PMH did not have data in the report for either of those categories.

Gilson said the ER at the Brandon Regional Health Centre is the only one which PMH can track electronically, and although that same system is set to be put in place in Dauphin. The hospital there is undergoing a major redevelopment.

Gilson said in smaller rural areas, ER wait times are generally not issues.

But one area of note in the CIHI report was repeat hospital stays for mental illness.

Between 2014 and 2015, 13.3 per cent of patients in PMH had at least three repeat hospital stays for mental illness in a single year, the highest of all the regional health authorities in Manitoba.

Gilson said this is something PMH will want to look at further, but she stated BRHC has a designated psychiatric unit, but other sites may not.

“So if we’re compared to peers that don’t have those designated in-patients units for mental health, then we show up as being longer stays for mental illness,” she said.

“Sometimes when we get the numbers, we need to do further analysis to determine if that’s actually true or if we have particular factors in our system that impact those numbers.”

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