CollingwoodToday welcomes letters to the editor at [email protected] or via our website. Please include your daytime phone number and address (for verification of authorship, not publication). The following letter is in response to previous articles about emergency department wait times.
I am writing in response to your two articles this month highlighting the escalating emergency department wait times across the province.
With a growing and aging population and a hospital that is too small for our needs, this is an issue for our emergency department at Collingwood General and Marine Hospital (CGMH), as well.
In mid-November, CGMH launched a pilot program to try to minimize wait times in our emergency department.
Patients can visit the CGMH website and book an arrival time for cough and cold symptoms, as well as strains and sprains.
A patient’s complete visit can often be accomplished in one hour or less, including triage, imaging if indicated, and treatment.
With five arrival times available each day, patients can book their arrival times here.
We started this program after noticing that many of our patients struggle to find alternative access to care after hours or do not have a local family physician, as the South Georgian Bay region has experienced significant growth over the past few years.
We have launched this in collaboration with Royal Victoria Regional Health Centre, and are not familiar with any other emergency department in the world that is utilizing a book-in system to minimize wait times in this way. Patient feedback has been overwhelmingly receptive, with 89 per cent of emergency department fast-track patients reporting positive satisfaction rates.
There are still open slots for our emergency department fast track on most days. We expect demand to increase based on the positive feedback we have received, and hope to expand this program moving forward to better serve our community.
Dr. Greg Devet
Chief of Emergency Dept, CGMH
