Interior Health is planning a pilot project it says will help keep emergency rooms running in some rural hospitals by providing virtual doctor care to patients in smaller communities.<\/p>\n
The pilot program would allow doctors to “share responsibilities” with a mix of virtual and on-site staffing, the health authority says in a statement.<\/p>\n
Under the proposed pilot project, hospitals in Nakusp, Princeton, Clearwater and Lillooet will be staffed by an ER physician working physically in one location and virtually at the other three.<\/p>\n
Karen Cooper, a director with Interior Health, said the physician will be with a team of health-care workers. Other physicians will be on call, if needed.<\/p>\n
“It’s a model that helps us sustain the access in these more remote communities in the long run,” she said. <\/p>\n
Cooper said the proposal comes after hearing from physicians who cover overnight emergency shifts that being able to work remotely would make it easier for them to continue running their practices, and avoid burnout.<\/p>\n
“Our doctors do cite that that coverage model is very tiring and we want to ensure that they have the amount of energy to work in their clinic’s the next day,” she said.<\/p>\n
Health\u00a0Minister Josie Osborne said the plan is a “forward-looking approach” that strengthens rural emergency services and ensures timely care.<\/p>\n
Many emergency rooms in B.C. have faced repeated temporary closures overnight and on weekends due to a lack of staff to cover available shifts.<\/p>\n
LISTEN | B.C.’s crisis of ER closures:<\/p>\n
BC Today50:52B.C.’s doctor shortage & ER closures | Sustaining the ‘Buy Canadian’ movement<\/p>\n
Cooper said the locations were chosen as they have a lower volume of patients coming to the ER overnight.<\/p>\n
Nakusp Mayor Tom Zeleznik welcomes the plan.<\/p>\n
“It’s an opportunity to help our ER from closing or otherwise,” he said. <\/p>\n
The pilot project will begin early next year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Interior Health is planning a pilot project it says will help keep emergency rooms running in some rural…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":233949,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[49,48,84,392],"class_list":{"0":"post-233948","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-healthcare","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-health","11":"tag-healthcare"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/233948","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=233948"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/233948\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/233949"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=233948"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=233948"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=233948"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}