The New Brunswick Heart Centre entered a five-year collaboration Horizon Health Network and Medtronic Integrated Health Solutions (IHS) with the goal of reducing wait times and improving access to care for its patients in 2016, with the goal of improve access to five clinical services at the NBHC. The initial project phase focused on cardiovascular surgery wait times has been concluded, resulting in reduced wait times for patients requiring heart surgery. The initiative involved teams from Horizon and Medtronic IHS as well as senior administrative and clinical leaders, physicians and staff from the NBHC and Saint John Regional Hospital. Within six months of using a Lean process improvement approach, the team has managed to:
- Increase operating room (OR) capacity by 14%;
- Reduce average wait times by 44% from about four months to two months (i.e., from 118 to 66 days);
- Reduce maximum wait times for 90% of patients by 31% from about 9 ½ months to 6 ½ months (i.e., from 283 to 195 days); and
- Reduce patient wait time during the discharge process by an average of half a day (reducing post-op average length of stay by 7.1%).
Combined, the results have created capacity for additional cardiac surgeries and the number of patients waiting for cardiac surgery has been reduced. The second phase of the project will focus on increasing the efficiency of the NBHC's cardiac catheterization laboratory by implementing strategies to improve communication between providers and reduce the time a patient spends waiting in the system.
Autres nouvelles:
Les premiers résultats d’un projet démontrent une réduction des temps d’attente des patients au centre cardiaque du Nouveau-Brunswick - Réseau de santé Horizon