People here are more dissatisfied with their health care than
almost anywhere else in the province, according to new data that so
concerns the Erie St. Clair LHIN that staff have been charged to find
out why.
“Clearly it’s a symptom, system wise. That problem with patient
satisfaction is a symptom of something we have to address,” Martin
Girash, the chairman of the Local Health Integration Network board, said
Thursday, referring to a recent report on local health indicators and
how they compare to provincial targets.
Two indicators — low patient satisfaction and the high proportion of
hospital beds taken up by patients (called alternative level of care)
who should be somewhere else such as nursing homes — were flagged for
further study, according to Girash. He said staff at the LHIN will be
“drilling down” into the data to find out why people are less satisfied
here than any of the 14 other health regions in the province, with the
exception of two regions in Northern Ontario.
He said a similar red flag was hoisted several years ago when the
data showed too few stroke patients were getting treated quickly
enough so they could be treated with game-changing clot-busting drugs
that can minimize or even reverse the damage. The problem was
identified, studied and addressed, and the next time the measurements
came out the results for stroke were “fantastic,” said Girash.
“It’s a really, really good example of how monitoring the performance
indicators, flagging it, finding out what the problem is, what needs to
be done, actually makes a difference.”
The data also shows near-the-top results for: receiving home care
from the CCAC within the provincial targets; getting CT scans quickly;
getting a spot in long-term care quickly; and fewer repeat customers for
hospitals and emergencies. Erie St. Clair is in the middle of the pack
for: wait times for hip and knee replacements, cancer surgery and MRIs;
emergency department length of stays; and quality of primary care. It
scores near the bottom for the percentage of hospital beds taken up by
ALCs; wait times for cataract surgery; palliative home support; and
patient satisfaction.
Pete Crvenkovski, the LHIN’s director of performance, quality and
knowledge management, has asked the Health Ministry for more detailed
data on patient satisfaction. The numbers are based on asking a sampling
of the population: How satisfied are you with health care in your
community? On average across the province, about 87 per cent said they
were satisfied or very satisfied. The 14 LHINs ranged between about 81
in the North West LHIN (centred in Thunder Bay) and 92 in Toronto. The
Erie St. Clair LHIN had an 82 per cent satisfaction rate, third lowest
in the province. Crvenkovski said it looks like the Windsor area has a
better satisfaction rate (around 84 per cent), than elsewhere in the
LHIN, which covers the Sarnia-Chatham-Windsor region.
Girash said while it’s not yet known why people here are less
satisfied, he speculates one reason may be the crowded hospital
emergency departments where patients are “hanging from the rafters.”
Girash, a retired CEO at Windsor Regional Hospital, went to an ED
recently. “I saw people in terrible pain, awful pain. They had already
been triaged and were sitting in the waiting room, but there were so
many people, the volume was tremendous.”
Windsor Regional Hospital CEO David Musyj.Files /
Windsor Star
The same report showing patient dissatisfaction also showed that
Windsor Regional’s two EDs have length of stay times for serious cases
that are well above the province’s target time of eight hours. Its Met
ED averages 11.2 hours and its Ouellette ED — the regional trauma centre
that takes the most critical cases — averages 14.6 hours.
The data shows that patients who had recently been to an ED were more
dissatisfied with their health care than those who hadn’t been to an
ED, according to Crvenkovski. Windsor Regional CEO David Musyj said the
hospital has work to do in its EDs.
“That is no different than any hospital in the province, emergency departments struggle with patient satisfaction,” he said.
He said the region’s low patient satisfaction scores shouldn’t be
blamed on hospitals, since 90 per cent of the health care people receive
comes outside hospitals, from doctor’s offices, home care, clinics and
other services. Windsor Regional continually measures patient
satisfaction and has numbers better than 82 per cent, said Musyj.
In 2015, the satisfaction rate was 94 per cent at its Met campus,
though the rate in the ED was 83. At Ouellette, the overall rate was 90
per cent but 80 per cent in the ED.
The lower satisfaction scores in the ED pull down the hospital’s overall scores, Musyj said.
“That’s the difference maker, why we’re not at 100 per cent, so that’s our focus.”
Dr. Amit Bagga, president of the Essex County Medical Association,
said he believes that, given the resources available, people are doing
amazing work locally providing health care.
“I genuinely believe from my heart we have some great people in the
city,” said Bagga, a nephrologist (kidney specialist), who cites family
doctors, specialists, nurse practitioners and nurses for their excellent
care. “But I don’t think we can ignore that good healthcare depends on
appropriate resources provided by the provincial government.”
