A major win at Waterloo Region hospitals.<\/p>\n
The Waterloo Regional Health Network (WRHN), which includes two main hospitals in Kitchener-Waterloo, is boasting a massive reduction in ambulance offload times over the past five months.<\/p>\n
In April 2024, the average offload time at WRHN @ Midtown (formerly Grand River Hospital KW Campus) was 107 minutes. Today it\u2019s down to 28 minutes.<\/p>\n
A similar drop has been seen at WRHN @ Queen\u2019s Blvd (formerly St. Mary\u2019s General Hospital), dropping 83 minutes to 27 minutes during that same one-year period.<\/p>\n
\u201cPrior to the merger officially occurring, the urgency to solve the increasing offload times across the region was apparent,\u201d said Brandon Douglas, Vice President, Patient Care & Queen\u2019s Blvd. Site Lead.<\/p>\n
\u201cWith the Emergency Departments (EDs) of our two legacy hospitals coming together ahead of the merger under one VP portfolio in January of 2025, it allowed for the strategy and its priority to be deployed across both EDs, building from what was already working at either site.\u201d<\/p>\n
Since the end of June, the hospitals under WRHN have been able to keep those ambulance offload times to 30 minutes for about 90 per cent of patients.<\/p>\n
Some of the changes made to achieve this goal included introducing more standardized processes and collaboration between WRHN and the Region of Waterloo Paramedic Services.<\/p>\n
\u201cLeveraging the same technology within WRHN\u2019s joint Electronic Medical Record (EMR), introducing standardized processes, as well as socializing the fundamental concept that the offload area was a \u2018horizontal waiting room\u2019 and not a place to stay and be treated,\u201d Douglas added.<\/p>\n