Joint Replacement Wait times in Canada

Thursday, 21 March 2013 19:55

According to a report released by the Canadian Institute for Health Information (CIHI), and reported by the Toronto Star, Hip and knee replacements in Canada are rising at a rate that is outpacing the ability of hospitals to keep up with demand.

An aging population, rising rates of obesity and osteoarthritis, and improvements in surgical practice and technology that make more people candidates for the procedure are all contributing to the rising need for joint replacement surgeries. In the last two years, the number of hip and knee replacement surgeries has increased by 15 per cent, says the report.

Although more procedures were performed in 2012 than in any other year — more than 538,000, an increase of nearly 21,000 from 2011 — there was no overall reduction in the length of time patients waited for these five priority procedures compared to 2010.

Two new reports from CIHI conclude that, while progress has been made in some areas—most notably priority surgeries—people continue to wait at nearly all points of their journey through the health care system

CIHI’s data reveals that after entering an emergency department (ED), 1 person in 10 is there for eight hours or more. The overall average length of stay is longer than four hours.

Compared with countries such as Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States, Canada actually has the highest percentage of patients waiting four hours or more in the ED before being treated.

Waits occur not only in emergency rooms but throughout the patient journey. They start with primary care: more than half of Canadians surveyed say they can’t get an appointment with their family physician on the same or next day—but only a small proportion (15%) of Canadians report that they find this wait unacceptable.

Dissatisfaction with the wait to see a specialist, however, is nearly double that: 29% find their wait unacceptable; 14% of patients waited more than three months for their appointment. Regarding elective surgery, 25% of people reported waiting four or more months.