Released on May 8, 2013
$70.5 Million to Reduce Waits and Improve Patient Experience
Saskatchewan patients will receive surgery sooner and benefit from innovations that improve the quality and safety of surgical care, thanks to a $70.5 million investment in 2013-14 in the Saskatchewan Surgical Initiative, a four-year collaborative effort by the health system.
The funding is up $10 million from the previous year. It will enable health regions to complete 7,000 more surgeries for patients in 2013-14, about half of them (3,200) by Regina Qu'Appelle Health Region. Combined, the 10 Saskatchewan health regions that offer surgery will provide about 89,000 procedures.
"Saskatchewan’s health regions and surgical teams have made incredible progress toward our goal of improving quality and offering all patients surgery within three months,” Health Minister Dustin Duncan said. "Government wants to ensure they have the resources they need to reach that target and maintain a high standard of safe, quality care.”
The funding will be directed primarily to hospital costs, but will also enable improvements that support the surgical system, including:
- quality improvement and safety initiatives;
- improved assessment of patients;
- home care and post-operative rehabilitation;
- physician services; and
- staff training (especially operating room nurses).
"This funding will enable us to continue our work transforming surgical care in Saskatchewan for the benefit of patients,” Surgical Initiative physician leader Dr. Peter Barrett said. "We have adopted proven safety procedures, found ways to reduce waits for patients, and improved the way we handle the assessment and treatment of medical conditions such as back pain and prostate cancer. Together with the help of patient advisors, we are creating a patient-centred surgical care system that can be sustained into the future.”
The Surgical Initiative's goals are to improve surgical patients' experiences and by April 2014, offer all patients surgery within three months.
Since 2007, the number of patients waiting more than six months has fallen 64 per cent and the number waiting more than three months has fallen 49 per cent. A total of 19,315 patients were waiting for surgery on February 28, 2013, a decrease of 28 per cent since November 2007.
Find more information online at www.sasksurgery.ca.
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For more information, contact:
Tyler McMurchy
Health
Regina
Phone: 306-787-4083