Health P.E.I. is working to address long wait times for surgeries and diagnostic imaging, and there are early signs of progress.
That’s what MLAs heard Wednesday from officials with the provincial health authority during a legislative standing committee meeting.
At the meeting, Health P.E.I. CEO Melanie Fraser presented data showing wait times for key services have consistently exceeded national benchmarks set by the Canadian Institute for Health Information (CIHI).
“Long wait times can affect patient care. We also know that they can have impacts on the broader system, so they can contribute to overcrowding in emergency departments,” Fraser told the committee.
“They constrain our primary care resources and actually undermine public trust in the health-care system, and they also decrease the productivity and economic performance of a province.”
According to the data, the median wait time for hip replacements on P.E.I. is 204 days, compared to the CIHI benchmark of 182 days. For knee replacements, the wait is 333 days, far exceeding the 210-day guideline.
Fraser also said 10 per cent of Islanders waited much longer than the guidelines — 512 days for hip replacements (2.8 times longer than the guideline) and 674 days for knee replacements (3.2 times more than the guideline).
The situation is similar for cataract surgeries. As of September 2024, the median wait time for the procedure was 352 days — 112 days longer than the recommended benchmark.
“This is not acceptable, and I think you’ve seen that we’ve taken some very focused action to address these wait times,” Fraser said.
Strategies to improve access
Fraser said Health P.E.I. has assembled a “top-notch” team, including experienced staff working in the field and consultants from the international firm KPMG.
The team is working in hospitals across P.E.I. to implement strategies that have worked in other jurisdictions, including standardizing policies and procedures to improve operating room efficiency and using data-driven scheduling and algorithms to optimize operating room utilization.
One initiative showing early success, Fraser said, is the new cataract clinic in Charlottetown.
Since its launch in December, the clinic has performed 350 procedures. Combined with 45 performed at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital, that’s a total of 395 eye procedures — 100 more than the same period last year, the CEO said. The clinic boosted P.E.I.’s cataract surgery capacity by more than 60 per cent, and patient feedback has been positive.
“One lady just said it was so much less intimidating than going into the hospital,” said Fraser. “So I think it’s been a win for the patients, a win for the providers, and a win for the system in terms of being able to provide access.”
Public-private partnerships
Green Party MLA Peter Bevan-Baker raised concerns about the impact of private clinics on the public health-care system.
He noted while the cataract clinic increased capacity, the number of hospital-based procedures dropped significantly. Last year, 295 cataract procedures were done in public hospitals during this period, but now that number has dropped to 45.
“That’s an 85 per cent reduction,” Bevan-Baker said.
“We have had a lot of talk this morning about the partnerships that are developing between public and private, and I absolutely agree with you … But for me, the critical thing is — whatever partnerships we establish — they support rather than undermine the public health-care system.”
In response, Fraser said only lower-complexity cases have been moved to the clinic, so that frees up hospital resources for more complex surgeries.
“It’s about taking lower-acuity surgeries out of your acute care centre, your big building, your important surgery rooms, and putting them in a community setting. This happens everywhere, and it isn’t about whether it’s privately staffed or publicly staffed,” Fraser said.
Progress in diagnostic imaging
Similar challenges exist in diagnostic imaging. Fraser told the committee that less than 17 per cent of semi-urgent and non-urgent MRI scans are being completed within CIHI’s recommended wait times.
To address the backlog, Health P.E.I. has contracted with a private clinic in Moncton, N.B., to perform 2,600 MRI scans starting in February. The health authority is also exploring partnerships with providers like the Atlantic Veterinary College and a new private clinic in Summerside, P.E.I.
Recruitment and retention of specialized health-care professionals, such as MRI technologists, remain a priority, Fraser said, adding that two new technologists joined Health P.E.I. on Tuesday.
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