It’s expensive, often inefficient but still very vital for everyone in this province.
We speak, of course, of our ever-changing health-care delivery system.
There are so many components that can be discussed when speaking of our healthcare needs since the subject envelopes everything from emergency responses and treatments over to long-term and palliative care residents.
One area we believe needs to be talked about though is that of emergency services since it represents the best, and perhaps the worst, of what goes on in the rest of this industry that gobbles up nearly half of our provincial budget every year.
A recent report regarding one basic challenge gave us hope that when good minds are directed to a good problem, good solutions surface.
For instance, when recent data showed that just one per cent of our population was creating 25 per cent of all emergency room visits, the switch was turned on and the problem-solvers got busy.
Acknowledging there is a problem is the first important step.
To have so few taking up so much time and talent in our healthcare system, is scandalous.
Therefore, the bright-minded professionals began to do a little creative thinking in terms of eliminating some of these costs attached to the chronic over-users of a vital service.
In a province with a relatively small population, it’s fairly easy to identify who these “over-users” are, since they are continually showing up in the emergency room waiting areas. We’re sure the triage people are on a first-name basis with them.
So, instead of dispatching teams of two to five healthcare professionals to deal with the patient or client with the chronic problem, they have one person dedicated to tend to the continual returnees, thus allowing the other employees to focus on the emergent matters that crop up. The department managers are able to assign the time and talent where it is needed most, while the emergency room “returnee” still gets what he or she requires at a pace that suits everyone, since the assigned health-care professional is not continually being pulled away to serve elsewhere.
Of course, ER service is never a perfect world, that is why such straight-line Lean-type efficiencies can never work perfectly in such an environment.
But, at least attempting to address the needs of the chronic users of ER’s, especially in our busiest centres, is to be applauded.
Healthcare is where we expect professionalism to abound, and where respect should be dispensed on a regular basis.
If the floor isn’t clean, the window sill has dust and discarded products aren’t removed in a timely manner, then the rest of the service can’t be provided without undertaking some degree of risk. If the regular visitor to ER can’t be tended to quickly without a lot of fuss, then it’s a problem in it’s infancy stage that will put unnecessary stress on others and set everyone’s schedule back, instead of forward.
Health care is all about removing as much risk and unnecessary time as possible.
Taking care of this one per cent who take up 25 per cent of the ER time, with some compassion, we feel, is a solution to a well-recognized problem.
