The results are in from an independent survey taken last winter that rated Yorkton Regional Health Centre's emergency department against 13 other EDs around the province.
Yorkton landed in the bottom half of rankings in every category, but its numbers did not significantly differ from the provincial average.
According to the Health Quality Council (HQC), which conducted the survey of close to 30,000 emergency room patients between January and March of 2011, the results indicate a need for improvement around the province in areas such as staff courtesy, speed of care, and communication with patients.
When asked their opinion of "the overall quality of care" received during their ER visit, 82 percent of provincial respondents (78.6 percent in Yorkton) called it either "good," "very good," or "excellent." But HQC argues that health providers should be aiming to greatly increase the 22 percent of patients (17.7 percent in Yorkton) who called the care "excellent."
The emergency room survey was the first of its kind in Saskatchewan. Yorkton Regional Health Centre was the only Sunrise Health Region facility to participate.
"I think for the most part, [the numbers] are quite comparable to the rest of the province," said Sunrise VP of Health Services Roberta Wiwcharuk. "The other managers and directors that I spoke with, they said that there's nothing that really jumps out at them or surprises them."
The health region will be considering the results when it determines its future priorities for improving ER services.
"We'll see if we can address some of the areas that need a little bit more improvement than others and see if we can have a better satisfaction survey result for another time," said Wiwcharuk.
The VP anticipates the next emergency dep artment survey in the winter of 2012.
Conclusions from the survey were based primarily on the percentage of patients who chose the most positive answer choice available for a given question.
Melfort Hospital, St. Paul's Hospital, Saskatoon City Hospital, and Moose Jaw Union Hospital led the rankings. Lloydminster Hospital was a distant last, falling well below the provincial average in every category.
Yorkton had a statistically significant difference from the average in only three of the ten categories.
Ratings were substantially lower for Yorkton in the categories of "Continuity and Transition" (staff's efforts to explain how to continue treatment at home and how to follow up later) and "Information and Education" (staff's effectiveness at communicating information).
Yorkton was measurably above average in one category: "Access and Coordination," which includes such factors as wait times and staff availability. More than half of Yorkton patients waited to see a doctor for less than half an hour or had no wait at all.
The summarized report, Patients' experiences with emergency care in Saskatchewan hospitals, is available on HQC's website: www.hqc.sk.ca.
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