How To Reduce Wait Times For Surgeries!

Alberta's Health Department contributed $20 million, mainly for additional staff and operating rooms. The speedier surgeries did not result in other health services being delayed or cancelled.

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2005/12/19/waittime-051219.html

I think this was overlooked because at around the same time there was a lot of focus on Ralph Klein's "3rd way" (private for-profit US-style health care). This was mentioned in many other sources besides the Edmonton Journal but I think the Edmonton Journal article the CBC was referring to appeared in the Dec 20, 2005 issue. The other stories appeared at around the same time of course. The Edmonton Journal gave some results of the pilot project:

PILOT PROJECT RESULTS AFTER EIGHT MONTHS:
- Wait times to receive the first orthopedic consultation: Down to six weeks from 35 weeks.
- Wait times from the first orthopedic consultation to surgery: Down to 4.7 weeks from 47 weeks.
- Length of stay in hospital: Down to 4.3 days from 6.2 days.

The province gave money to support 1,200 hip and knee surgeries during the project. As of Nov. 23, 277 replacements had been done in Edmonton, 180 in Calgary and 69 in the Red Deer area.

Need I say more? The report even concluded that the overall cost to the system would be 2% LESS than it is now! The hospital costs would be 15% LESS than they are now also! Alberta's Health & Wellness minister Dave Hancock has said it's a "a staggering success story" but other than that I don't think governments have given this much consideration. Not as far as I know anyway. The general principles of this pilot project don't apply just to hip or knee surgery specifically; I think they could be applied to the whole system, and probably with similar effects.

here's the website of the Alberta Bone & Joint Health Institute & their final report:
http://www.albertaboneandjoint.com/ [Proofreader’s note: this article was edited for spelling and typos on October 1, 2007]