Online tool will track backlog progress

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 29/06/2022 (1337 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The province is taking a cue from Doctors Manitoba and releasing an online tool to help people monitor the clearing of the diagnostic and surgical backlog.

Dr. Peter MacDonald, chair of Manitoba’s diagnostic and surgical recovery task force steering committee, said the task force has been working with Doctors Manitoba to develop a new online dashboard that will provide updates to the public on surgical and diagnostic wait times.

“This will give Manitobans a broad view of the work that we are doing, where we have made progress and where we still have improvements to make,” MacDonald said.

The online dashboard has been in development since May and is expected to be released in July, said David Matear, the provincial executive director of the task force. He said the information in the dashboard will be updated monthly.

Initially, it will provide data on the top eight procedures in the province, then broaden its scope as it is developed.

Doctors Manitoba, the physician advocacy group, has its own dashboard and has called on the province numerous times to release more data about the backlog.

For months, the organization has been reporting estimated backlog numbers separate from the task force, but is now looking forward to collaborating on this, said Dr. Kristjan Thompson, past-president and board chair of Doctors Manitoba.

“It is an all-hands-on-deck approach. We are all working together to clear this massive backlog,” Thompson said.

The most recent estimates show the backlog is somewhere between 102,000 to 128,000 cases, including between 32,000 and 40,000 surgeries, 12,000 to 17,000 diagnostic imaging tests, and 58,000 to 72,000 other procedures.

Originally, the Doctors Manitoba backlog was focusing on the missing procedures and tests. Now, Thompson said the dashboard’s data is considering some procedures may not be needed due to patients dying, deteriorating, travelling out of province to get care or doctors finding alternative care for their patients. The organization and the province can now concentrate on those procedures that are still needed and who is stuck waiting.

He said things are moving in the right direction, but there is still plenty of work that needs to be done to catch up.

Doctors Manitoba has also made a concerning discovery in wait times.

“We found that for nearly all procedures, patients are waiting longer today than they did before the pandemic, so we need to do better,” Thompson said. “Once we catch up, we really need to review and evaluate the need for testing and surgeries within this province every year, to ensure that our health system is increasing capacity to meet this growing need.”

However, he said he understood the priority for the task force when it was formed in December was to start clearing the backlog, which was growing quickly due to mounting COVID-19 cases and tightening restrictions.

Even with this new collaboration and progress, Doctors Manitoba is still calling on the province to set a target date for reducing the backlog, Thompson said. It would be a clear signal to the health-care system the government will make sure appropriate resources are mobilized to address the backlog. It will also give patients waiting for their turn some hope.

He acknowledged it would be complicated and a tough target to hit, but it can be done.

Matear added it’s impossible for the task force to put a target date on the backlog right now, but they are working with people in Manitoba’s health-care system to increase capacity to meet needs, as well as partners in other jurisdictions to help achieve those goals.

» kmckinley@brandonsun.com

» Twitter: @karenleighmcki1