Chatham-Kent Health Alliance officials said they’re happy to have the Chatham and Wallaceburg emergency departments on the clock.
CKHA recently launched a wait-time clock for the Chatham and Sydenham campuses, specifically focused on estimated wait times for the emergency departments.
Adam Topp, president and CEO of CKHA, said visiting CKHA’s website will now give patients and families a real-time look at what to potentially expect if they need to seek treatment. However, he added the clock is not 100 per cent accurate in terms of how long a particular patient may have to wait to be seen by a health-care professional.
“Part of the complex challenge is that patients don’t get seen on a first-come, first-served basis. They’re triaged based on need,” he said. “So, it’s an order of magnitude, not a precise tracker.”
CKHA has joined several other Ontario hospitals in adopting digital wait time reporting to enhance the patient experience.
The wait time system operates by grabbing real-time data from the hospital’s internal system. The numbers reflect a calculated estimate based on the current volume and acuity of patients in the department.
To ensure accuracy while protecting system performance, the report updates every 30 to 60 minutes.
