Manitoba Adds Staff Equipment To Deal With Surgical And Diagnostic Backlogs

As part of the expansion, another orthopedic surgeon will be hired from the province, Health Minister Audrey Gordon told a news conference Wednesday morning, where the task force tasked with dealing with Manitoba’s delayed surgeries informed her. Four inpatient beds will also be added and anesthesia staff will be added to Concordia, Gordon said in a statement at the Concordia Hip and Knee Institute. Winnipeg Northeast Hospital is the province’s leading site for arthroplasty surgeries. However, a significant number of patients had to wait for their procedures as staff, beds and other resources were redistributed to deal with the pandemic. The improvements are expected to increase the capacity to up to 1,000 surgeries per year, but are not expected to be implemented by the end of the year. “The number of surgeries is far behind here for this year, but what we are talking about is the extra 1,000 [is] after returning to the baseline [levels]Said Dr. Peter MacDonald, chair of the task force’s steering committee. That means “not just going back to the original price,” but adding surgeries, he said. “As an orthopedic surgeon, I know the profound benefits that hip and knee surgeries can have on a person’s quality of life and overall health, so it is a very important initiative to see progress.” Winnipeg resident Rene Comeau, who waited three years for a knee replacement, welcomed the idea that he could get a date for surgery. “I can not do things for long. It is half an hour of work with maybe an hour of sitting,” he said. The province also buys a new mobile CT unit and two new MRI units to reduce the waiting time for diagnostic procedures. The units will be able to provide more than 11,600 CT scans and 7,200 MRI scans per year, according to a provincial press release. No information was given on when they will be put into operation. Similarly, the province announced that services to the Misericordia Health Center waterfall program are being expanded, but said nothing about how or when. “We promise to let you know next time,” MacDonald said.

Spine estimates

The Winnipeg Spine Clinical Evaluation is receiving $ 400,000 to add four physiotherapists and increase the number of evaluations for about 900 people living with back pain, Gordon said. About 90 percent of patients referred for clinical evaluation can be assisted with treatments other than surgery, such as physiotherapy and chiropractic care, Gordon said. These additional staff members should be available in the coming months, with the goal of reducing the waiting list for spine evaluations by next spring. A pilot project with Sanford Health in North Dakota is now well under way, with nine Manitobans having undergone spine surgery to date and more scheduled in the coming weeks, the county said. “We’re going to start scaling it up,” said Ian Shaw, Manitoba Health’s director of transformation management. “This will happen in months. This is not something you should expect to really happen in a day. We try to manage it in a very safe way for patients.” The creation of the special diagnostic and surgical rehabilitation team was first announced in November, when the province’s outstanding balance was estimated at 130,000 surgeries. Since then, however, the backlog has swelled to nearly 168,000 surgeries, Manitoba Doctors said last week. The defense agency monitors the various delayed procedures in an electronic control panel, updating it on a monthly basis. While Manitoba Doctors has welcomed the implementation of a task force, it has repeatedly urged the province to be more transparent about the group’s efforts, including setting target dates for clearing delays and providing comprehensive, monthly monitoring reports. progress.

Focus on waiting times

MacDonald said the working group did not fully agree with the figures compiled by Doctors Manitoba. The task force is working with the team of doctors to try to verify these numbers, he said. “We both recognize that there are pitfalls in the methodology on both sides,” he said, noting that waiting times may be a more important measure for patients than a large number representing the unfulfilled. “When you look at the backlog, they’re very scary. And then when you talk to the front line, you see a different story in some areas,” MacDonald said. Asked what the current waiting times are, MacDonald said “there is a huge range of procedures” and different levels of urgency. The working group “has a good idea” of average waiting times for most procedures, but it would take some time to put it together. He acknowledged that it should be included in the provincial working group’s website, which is outdated and currently being upgraded. Dr. Ed Buchel, chief surgeon on the task force’s steering committee, said the team is setting up a surgical waiting list management system that will give patients answers about how many people are on the waiting list and how long they will wait. “We are not trying to hide anything. There is nothing, from a surgical program, that I would not like to do more than share real data,” he said. “This is a fundamental, basic thing that our system needed.” Without such an information management system is the best guess, “and that translates to Doctors Manitoba numbers versus ours,” Buchel said.

Some procedures have been fully restored

Earlier this month, the panel reported that the number of surgeries and diagnostic procedures performed each week at some Manitoba hospitals was gradually increasing as staff returned to their normal care of COVID-19 patients. Currently, 146 staff members remain reassigned or reassigned – the lowest number since the peak of the third COVID wave in July 2021, Gordon said on Wednesday. “We hope to be back by the end of April,” he said. The working group aims to bring all waiting times back to 2019 levels. There is no target date for this yet, but the province is taking “incredible steps” and the latest initiatives “lay the groundwork for more improvements to follow,” he said. MacDonald. Gordon noted that endoscopy services and bariatric surgery are examples of procedures that have been fully restored to pre-pandemic levels since last week. There are also plans to staff multiple sites at 75 to 100 percent of surgical capacity during the summer, a time when surgical plates typically drop to about 40 percent, he said. That equates to 200-250 surgeries in the summer months, he said.

“It is never good enough”: opposition

The opposition NDP and the Liberals reacted harshly to the news, saying it offered no confidence. “If you are from Manitoba waiting for a life-changing surgery, a potentially life-saving surgery… or a really important diagnostic test, unfortunately you did not receive an answer today as to when the surgery or your examination. will be available, “said NDP health critic Uzoma Asagwara. The Progressive Conservative Government has the resources – and a responsibility – to set an expiration date for clearing the delays, but they “refuse to do so,” Asagwara said. “They do not want to be held accountable for their decisions and responsibilities.” Manitoba Liberal leader Dugald Lamon has accused the government of setting a low bar for success. “It’s hard to believe, but the computers are not even trying to fix what they did. They want to get back to the 2019 waiting list levels, which were already bad and have been getting worse for three consecutive years due to computer cuts.” he said in a statement. “This is not good enough.” The president of Doctors Manitoba encouraged more than government announcements. In a statement, Dr. Kristjan Thompson described the measures as “concrete steps” in the right direction, but only a start for “much more work and investment” [that] will be needed to clear the huge volume of surgical and diagnostic backlogs “.

title: “Manitoba Adds Staff Equipment To Deal With Surgical And Diagnostic Backlogs " ShowToc: true date: “2022-11-11” author: “Karen Hanson”

As part of the expansion, another orthopedic surgeon will be hired from the province, Health Minister Audrey Gordon told a news conference Wednesday morning, where the task force tasked with dealing with Manitoba’s delayed surgeries informed her. Four inpatient beds will also be added and anesthesia staff will be added to Concordia, Gordon said in a statement at the Concordia Hip and Knee Institute. Winnipeg Northeast Hospital is the province’s leading site for arthroplasty surgeries. However, a significant number of patients had to wait for their procedures as staff, beds and other resources were redistributed to deal with the pandemic. The improvements are expected to increase the capacity to up to 1,000 surgeries per year, but are not expected to be implemented by the end of the year. “The number of surgeries is far behind here for this year, but what we are talking about is the extra 1,000 [is] after returning to the baseline [levels]Said Dr. Peter MacDonald, chair of the task force’s steering committee. That means “not just going back to the original price,” but adding surgeries, he said. “As an orthopedic surgeon, I know the profound benefits that hip and knee surgeries can have on a person’s quality of life and overall health, so it is a very important initiative to see progress.” Winnipeg resident Rene Comeau, who waited three years for a knee replacement, welcomed the idea that he could get a date for surgery. “I can not do things for long. It is half an hour of work with maybe an hour of sitting,” he said. The province also buys a new mobile CT unit and two new MRI units to reduce the waiting time for diagnostic procedures. The units will be able to provide more than 11,600 CT scans and 7,200 MRI scans per year, according to a provincial press release. No information was given on when they will be put into operation. Similarly, the province announced that services to the Misericordia Health Center waterfall program are being expanded, but said nothing about how or when. “We promise to let you know next time,” MacDonald said.

Spine estimates

The Winnipeg Spine Clinical Evaluation is receiving $ 400,000 to add four physiotherapists and increase the number of evaluations for about 900 people living with back pain, Gordon said. About 90 percent of patients referred for clinical evaluation can be assisted with treatments other than surgery, such as physiotherapy and chiropractic care, Gordon said. These additional staff members should be available in the coming months, with the goal of reducing the waiting list for spine evaluations by next spring. A pilot project with Sanford Health in North Dakota is now well under way, with nine Manitobans having undergone spine surgery to date and more scheduled in the coming weeks, the county said. “We’re going to start scaling it up,” said Ian Shaw, Manitoba Health’s director of transformation management. “This will happen in months. This is not something you should expect to really happen in a day. We try to manage it in a very safe way for patients.” The creation of the special diagnostic and surgical rehabilitation team was first announced in November, when the province’s outstanding balance was estimated at 130,000 surgeries. Since then, however, the backlog has swelled to nearly 168,000 surgeries, Manitoba Doctors said last week. The defense agency monitors the various delayed procedures in an electronic control panel, updating it on a monthly basis. While Manitoba Doctors has welcomed the implementation of a task force, it has repeatedly urged the province to be more transparent about the group’s efforts, including setting target dates for clearing delays and providing comprehensive, monthly monitoring reports. progress.

Focus on waiting times

MacDonald said the working group did not fully agree with the figures compiled by Doctors Manitoba. The task force is working with the team of doctors to try to verify these numbers, he said. “We both recognize that there are pitfalls in the methodology on both sides,” he said, noting that waiting times may be a more important measure for patients than a large number representing the unfulfilled. “When you look at the backlog, they’re very scary. And then when you talk to the front line, you see a different story in some areas,” MacDonald said. Asked what the current waiting times are, MacDonald said “there is a huge range of procedures” and different levels of urgency. The working group “has a good idea” of average waiting times for most procedures, but it would take some time to put it together. He acknowledged that it should be included in the provincial working group’s website, which is outdated and currently being upgraded. Dr. Ed Buchel, chief surgeon on the task force’s steering committee, said the team is setting up a surgical waiting list management system that will give patients answers about how many people are on the waiting list and how long they will wait. “We are not trying to hide anything. There is nothing, from a surgical program, that I would not like to do more than share real data,” he said. “This is a fundamental, basic thing that our system needed.” Without such an information management system is the best guess, “and that translates to Doctors Manitoba numbers versus ours,” Buchel said.

Some procedures have been fully restored

Earlier this month, the panel reported that the number of surgeries and diagnostic procedures performed each week at some Manitoba hospitals was gradually increasing as staff returned to their normal care of COVID-19 patients. Currently, 146 staff members remain reassigned or reassigned – the lowest number since the peak of the third COVID wave in July 2021, Gordon said on Wednesday. “We hope to be back by the end of April,” he said. The working group aims to bring all waiting times back to 2019 levels. There is no target date for this yet, but the province is taking “incredible steps” and the latest initiatives “lay the groundwork for more improvements to follow,” he said. MacDonald. Gordon noted that endoscopy services and bariatric surgery are examples of procedures that have been fully restored to pre-pandemic levels since last week. There are also plans to staff multiple sites at 75 to 100 percent of surgical capacity during the summer, a time when surgical plates typically drop to about 40 percent, he said. That equates to 200-250 surgeries in the summer months, he said.

“It is never good enough”: opposition

The opposition NDP and the Liberals reacted harshly to the news, saying it offered no confidence. “If you are from Manitoba waiting for a life-changing surgery, a potentially life-saving surgery… or a really important diagnostic test, unfortunately you did not receive an answer today as to when the surgery or your examination. will be available, “said NDP health critic Uzoma Asagwara. The Progressive Conservative Government has the resources – and a responsibility – to set an expiration date for clearing the delays, but they “refuse to do so,” Asagwara said. “They do not want to be held accountable for their decisions and responsibilities.” Manitoba Liberal leader Dugald Lamon has accused the government of setting a low bar for success. “It’s hard to believe, but the computers are not even trying to fix what they did. They want to get back to the 2019 waiting list levels, which were already bad and have been getting worse for three consecutive years due to computer cuts.” he said in a statement. “This is not good enough.” The president of Doctors Manitoba encouraged more than government announcements. In a statement, Dr. Kristjan Thompson described the measures as “concrete steps” in the right direction, but only a start for “much more work and investment” [that] will be needed to clear the huge volume of surgical and diagnostic backlogs “.