ER overcrowding could be helped by smarter staffing: report
Posted Apr 9, 2010 06:16:30 AM.
This article is more than 5 years old.
The doctor looking into emergency room services in Nova Scotia is not recommending closures – but he says there needs to be system-wide changes and better use of existing resources.
Dr. John Ross has released his interim report, which concludes that common emergency care standards and smarter staffing practices are needed across the province.
He says he’s also noticed some rural hospital ER’s have less than one patient visit per night and they are rarely true emergencies.
He wants to see better primary care during the day.
“That means seeing family doctors or nurse practitioners or alternate kinds of healthcare providers,” he said. “Maybe extended nurse roles or modified roles for paramedics.”
Even at the QEII, he says there needs to be better flow through the queue after 11 ambulances parked there one day last week.
EMTs had to stay with their patients until beds became available, preventing those ambulances from going back to their respective communities.
Dr. Ross says throwing more money and more doctors at the problem won’t solve it – smarter staffing practices will.
