Fewer people could be going to Langley Memorial Hospital’s emergency room in the near future.
And that’s exactly what Fraser Health wants.
Fraser Health is expanding a successful pilot project that reduced unnecessary ER visits by more than 1,100 in the first year at Peach Arch Hospital.
When people arrive at the ER, they are assessed and put into a category depending on the severity and urgency of their ailment.
“We rank how sick you are,” said Dr. Neil Barclay, Fraser Health regional medical director for Emergency Medicine.
Category one is for the most urgent, life-threatening cases. Category five are the least urgent, such as those seeking a prescription refill. The higher the number, the longer the patient waits to be seen, until more urgent cases are seen.
The project at Peach Arch greatly reduced those category four and five cases.
“That’s where the big change came in,” he said.
Barclay couldn’t say exactly when all other hospitals within the Fraser Health Authority would start using this same campaign.
But he expects Langley to be in 2017.
“The nice thing for Langley and the other communities is we’ve done the work,” he said.
The campaign had the hospital team up with the White Rock-South Surrey Division of Family Practice (the doctors within the Peach Arch Hospital community) and the hospital’s charitable foundation.
Barclay said the other hospitals would have to create similar partnerships.
“To make this work you need the cooperation of the hospital and you need the cooperation of the division of family practice,” he explained.
The ‘Use the ER Wisely’ campaign used posters and signage throughout the White Rock-South Surrey community to direct patients to doctors’ offices and walk-in clinics for non-emergency health care needs, ultimately helping to reduce unnecessary ER visits.
The posters are placed in doctors’ offices, walk-in clinics, libraries, recreation centres, lab services and the Emergency Department to remind patients of their options. The public is also told about HealthLinkBC at 8-1-1, which is available 24 hours per day, seven days per week, and about Medimap, an online tracker for clinic wait times.
He said care for non-emergency cases at a hospital is much costlier to the system than at clinics and doctors’ offices.
Across Canada, 20 per cent of ER visits were unnecessary and the demand is increasing five to 15 per cent each year with Fraser Health.
“It’s gotten a lot worse over the past few years,” he said of ER congestion.
That combined with an increasing population prompted the pilot project that started December 2015 at Peach Arch.
“It’s about going to the best place for what’s going on with you,” Barclay said.
