There's a new way of doing things and the provincial government says it will mean Saskatchewan patients will now benefit from innovative scheduling options that reduce the time spent waiting for consultations with specialists in order to receive surgery and other treatments.
Eight groups of specialists have adopted the streamlined process called pooled referrals, and a new provincial service is making it easier for specialists to participate even if they don't share an office. Health Minister Dustin Duncan took part in the official opening for Referral Management Services, which facilitates referrals from physicians and other clinicians.
"Through the Saskatchewan Surgical Initiative, our government is encouraging the use of the pooled referral model that has been successfully implemented by several groups of surgeons in the province," Duncan says. "This is a common sense approach that gets people to a specialist sooner so they can arrive at a diagnosis and agree on a treatment plan."
Pooling referrals is about improving patient choice by offering the patient the option of seeing the next available specialist. Patients are consistently assigned to an appropriate specialist with the shortest wait time or they can choose to see a specific specialist.
"Before we started offering pooled referrals five months ago, the average wait for a gynecology appointment was 44 days," Regina Qu'Appelle Health Region's Head of Obstetrics and Gynecology Dr. Corrine Jabs adds. "We've cut that almost in half to 24 days. By levelling their workloads, our gynecologists are able to see patients sooner and achieve a more manageable workload. This is just one of the ways our region is focusing on reducing surgical wait times and enhancing our patients' experiences."
The Obs-Gyn Department has outsourced the referral process to the new provincial service. Referral Management Services confirms receipt of the referral with the referring physician and contacts the patient within two weeks about an appointment. Specialists receive regular reports about the types of medical conditions being handled, the length of patient waits and other information that can be used to manage future demand and further improve health care delivery.
"Developing Referral Management Services from scratch was an exciting project for HealthLine," Saskatchewan HealthLine Director Roberta Wiest says. "After extensive consultations we took part in a collaborative effort with medical department heads, the Surgical Initiative, the Saskatchewan Health Quality Council, the Regina Qu'Appelle Health Region Information Technology Department and our project consultants to create more efficient business processes that support better service to patients."
So far, two groups of specialists in Saskatoon, four in Regina and two in Prince Albert are using pooled referrals, with six more preparing to adopt this approach for improving access to care. Of these, two groups of specialists are using HealthLine's Referral Management Services and three others will start in 2013.
