Coordinating in a Crisis: Wait-lists in Northern Ontario
The wrath of wait lists in hospitals, long-term care facilities and home and community care is upon as our aging population is growing and so is their need for care. Overcrowding of hospitals has forced near emergency responses due to a lack of resources and ability to safely provide care (Mulligan, 2019). According to Ontario’s yearly health system report in 2016/17 approximately 4,233 hospital beds were used by patients who were awaiting some type of alternate level of care and could not be released as they had no other place to go (Health Quality Ontario,2018). Making improvements to home care can help alleviate some of the pressures on hospitals by enabling older adults to actively age in their own homes longer. A major focus in my role as Client Service Coordinator is to reduce our wait list of individuals waiting to receive in home care services. My obligation is to assign and schedule appropriate field staff with those approved to receive services as per the North East Local Health Integration Network (NE LHIN). The Ontario Hospital Association (2019) developed a short-term solution to increase collaboration with Home and Community Care in hopes to reduce the pressures on hospitals and hallway medicine. The NE LHIN has worked collaboratively with the Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care and Health Quality Ontario to create the five-day wait time policy to help decrease wait times for patients waiting for home care.
Home and Community Care are faced with their own set of barriers as we cannot keep up with the high volume of those needing services in the community. There is one common theme that determines an individual being put onto the wait list for home care, and that is—staffing shortages. Our focus as a provider is to first and foremost staff more people but also work on retention in order to relieve the wait-list. In many cases there are clients waiting to be released from the hospital cannot be released as they have been waistline for Home and Community Care. As you could imagine this plays into the cycle of the ‘Hallway medicine’ epidemic. Rationing of resources due to a lack of funding from the government is also a barrier in providing accessible and equal home care in Ontario (Home Care for me and you,2018). See the image below for home care services that are wait-listed in in the NE LHIN area.
As a coordinator in a rural/widespread area the bulk of our wait-lists are residents of farther widespread geographies. This means that there are individuals who may have been on a wait-list for several months in one part on north eastern Ontario whereas in another there may not be a wait-list at all. Where you live in the region heavily influences your ability to access services.
References
The Path to Ending Hallway Medicine for Ontario Patients. Ontario Hospital Association. (2019). Retrieved from https://www.oha.com/Bulletins/A Balanced Approach - 2019 Pre-Budget Submission.pdf
LHIN Home and Community Care. (n.d.). Retrieved May 23, 2019, from http://healthcareathome.ca/
MORE HOME CARE FOR ME AND YOU: Preparing Ontario’s Home Care System for the Challenges of Tomorrow. (2018, February 28). Retrieved May 23, 2019, from https://www.homecareontario.ca/docs/default-source/position-papers/home-care-ontario-more-home-care-for-me-and-you-february-28-2018.pdf?sfvrsn=16
Image Source: LHIN Home and Community Care. (n.d.). Retrieved May 23, 2019, from http://healthcareathome.ca/
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