In 2009, the Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care introduced the Emergency Department ALC Wait-Times strategy. Targeted funding was directed to hospitals to improve Emergency Department (ED) wait-times, also known as “Pay for Results” or P4R funding, by applying lean thinking and methodology to determinants of ED wait-times.
Woodstock Hospital became 1 of 74 Pay for Results (P4R) hospitals in Ontario in April of 2014. The goal of Woodstock Hospital’s Front Lines Improving Performance (FLIP) team is to optimize the quality of care including patient safety and satisfaction, while reducing a patient’s length of stay at Woodstock Hospital. Woodstock Hospital’s FLIP team is focused on improving the patient experience by building internal processes for long-term, sustainable change across the entire hospital.
In 2018-19, Woodstock Hospital was ranked 4th out of 74 hospitals in Ontario for overall Emergency Department wait time considering all 6 P4R wait time indicators, including:
- Rank 2nd in shortest length of stay for all patients admitted from the ED
- Rank 2nd in time it takes to move from the ED to a comfortable In-patient room
- Rank 14th in time taken to offload an ambulance and return it to the community
- Rank 5th in shortest length of stay for non-admitted complex patients
- Rank 10th in shortest length of stay for non-admitted minor patients
Woodstock Hospital takes a leadership role in implementing best practices to improve patient experience, such as being the first hospital in the LHIN to introduce pharmacy technicians in the Emergency Department to support medication reconciliation.
