By Angela Hill

Health-care workers return from overseas trip

Nov 22, 2010 | 5:19 AM

A group of medical professionals returned from a trip to the United Kingdom with ideas on how to tackle Saskatchewan’s surgical wait times.

“It was a very productive trip and it was also quite exciting as a learning experience and to be able to spend a week with people from other regions, both managers and frontline staff, as well as representatives from the Health Quality Council and Ministry of Health,” said Dr. Edmund Royeppen.

Royeppen, senior medical officer for the Prince Albert Parkland Health Region, was one of four representatives from that region on the trip.

During their visit they toured highly-functioning health facilities that have been using a strategy called Productive Operating Room, for the better part of the last decade.

Royeppen compares it to the Releasing Time to Care and Learn strategies, currently being implemented in different areas of Victoria Hospital.

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The Productive Operating Room creates, “maximized efficiency within the operating room environment to be able to perform surgeries safely,” he said.

“A lot of the foundation, in the productive, is about building teams, which is extremely important to have co-ordinated OR work. The second thing is around proper scheduling so that as little time is wasted during the operating room day.”

The program also takes early discharge planning into account, so people aren’t staying in hospital longer than they need to, instead of being released for alternate levels of care or to go home. It could also mean a reduction in the number of people arriving at the emergency room with acute issues.

Royeppen said, he is looking forward to implementing the program in the Prince Albert Parkland Health Region.

“I believe we have the commitment, we have the backing of the Ministry of Health and we certainly have the enthusiasm among frontline staff to change for the better,” he said.

“We are positioned, I believe, at a time when we can be most adaptable and I think we are going to be very successful at this. Come 2014, I think we would have reached our targets.”

Even if the target is 12 weeks wait, by 2014, we certainly would have created a safer, much more efficient experience for the patients, Royeppen said.

ahill@panow.com