Dr. Kellie Leitch glanced at the data on wait times colle cted from the patients in one of her clinics. As
Chief of Paediatric
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Orthopaedic surgery at the Children’s Ho spital of Western Ontario (CHWO), she was very concerned by the long times that the young patie nts (and their parents) were experiencing in the daily clinic. Long wait times tended to aggr avate the already pent-up distress a nd concern that they were feeling, and parents were unders tandably irritated at missing significant time at work. Currently, on an average, patients were spending roughly two hours in the clinic.
Patient health was not Dr. Leitch’s only concern. Clin ical staff had increasingly complained about being over-extended, yet budgetary pressure s to reduce the cost of service continued to mount. She was not convinced that all staff was being effectively utiliz ed, and there was an unresolved request from the
Radiology department for more adva nced equipment. Dr. Leitch also served on several government task forces. From these, she knew that federal and provincial policy-makers were increasingly concerned with the economic impact that health-care wait times had on national economic productivity.
In a moment of weakness, Dr. Leitch recently had volunt eered her clinic to hospita l management as a “test case” to demonstrate that patient care could be done in a more timely fa shion, without increasing costs. An objective of reducing wait times by 20 per cent was es tablished to show meani ngful improvement that would be clearly evident to patients, staff and management. A monthly ex ecutive meeting was fast approaching, and expectations we re starting to run high that Dr.
Leitch would present preliminary recommendations that would offer significant