Fifteen major hospitals across B.C. are getting a total of $22 million to fast-track patients through their emergency rooms as part of the government's strategy to tie funding to hospital performance.
Health Services Minister Kevin Falcon said Wednesday the money follows a pilot project that helped reduce congestion in emergency rooms at several hospitals in Metro Vancouver and the Fraser Valley.
"With almost two million visits to B.C. emergency rooms last year alone, this investment will help ensure patients receive timely, high-quality patient care," Falcon said in a news release.
The hospitals sharing the cash include seven in the Vancouver area and others in Victoria, Nanaimo, Kelowna, Kamloops, Vernon and Prince George.
Falcon said a pilot project for so-called patient-focused funding saw up to 40 per cent more patients have shorter waits at some hospitals last year despite a 15 per cent increase in emergency room visits, due mostly to the H1N1 flu.
The government defined patient-focused funding as a method of tying the money health authorities get to the amount and quality of health-care services they provide.
Critics have urged the government to go slow with the new funding model, saying a focus on volume could mean less attention paid to those with more complex medical problems.
NDP health critic Adrian Dix has said in the past the program will increase hospital bureaucracy and administrative costs.
"The minister believes that there's magic in having public hospitals compete against one another," Dix said. "But what we do know, is in order to compete and bid and fight for money, it costs you money in administration." The government said emergency room money will be invested in a variety of projects aimed at getting patients into a hospital bed or discharged from the hospital within defined target times.
Each emergency department measures the time between when patients arrive to when they are treated and either discharged or admitted to the hospital. Patients are categorized based on the complexity of their medical needs.
In one pilot project, Nanaimo Regional General Hospital introduced "streaming" in its emergency room. It involved simply seating those patients that could in chairs, allowing stretchers to be used mainly for initial assessments and treatment of more acute patients.
"By introducing this simple triaging technique, the hospital reduced wait times by 20 to 40 per cent," the government said in a news release.
But Dix scoffed at the notion that patient-focused funding is spurring innovation.
"Innovation is happening every day," he said, referring to hospitals that are coming up with their own cost-cutting measures.
The announcement Wednesday is part of the $250 million announced earlier this year that will be used to implement the patient-focused funding model.
By 2013, the government plans to have 20 per cent of health care spending to patient-focused funding, while the remaining 80 per cent will stay as block funding.
