Digital Care Journeys associated with Ontario's leadership in cutting wait times and reducing the surgery backlog

The Canadian Institute for Health Information (CIHI) recently released data showing how provinces were performing on wait times for surgery in 2023.

Of particular importance to the country has been cutting wait times and the backlog for Hip and Knee replacements since the pandemic.

The KPI that CIHI uses is the % of joint replacement surgeries performed within the recommended wait time of 26 weeks (182 days).

Before we get to 2023, let’s look at how provinces were performing before the pandemic in 2019. Notice that Ontario led the way for both hip (85%) and knee (80%). However their lead was not hugely significant, being just 11% higher than the 2nd highest performing province.

Of course the pandemic came in 2020 and understandably every province declined in meeting the wait time target. Despite this, Ontario’s performance relative to other performances remained essentially the same (10%-12% better than second best performance).

But things dramatically changed in Ontario over the next few years, with Ontario’s performance on wait times compared to the next best province significantly increasing to 21% (Hip) and 33% (Knee) better!

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What could possibly explain Ontario’s major success in cutting wait times and the surgery backlog compared to the other provinces?

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The rise of Digital Care Journeys in Ontario

From what we can tell, Ontario healthcare organizations have not discovered some new form of joint replacement surgery or unique recovery elements that other provinces wouldn’t have known about or been using.

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The one thing that is clearly different?

‍The rapid deployment of digital care journeys (SeamlessMD) to support patients undergoing surgery across Ontario, especially for total joint replacement.

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SeamlessMD leverages a patient’s own smartphone, tablet or computer to send patients reminders, deliver education and remotely monitor symptoms - such as for pre and post-surgery, oncology, women’s health and chronic care. The idea is to enable a more scalable technology approach to a larger variety and volume of patients than a more resource-intensive device-based Remote Patient Monitoring (RPM) program that requires every patient to be sent a kit with medical devices.

On the provider side, optional EMR and patient portal integration via a turn-key integration with Epic, Cerner or MEDITECH allows providers to monitor patients at scale from right within the EMR.

This approach leads to more prepared patients and faster recovery, and allows providers to safely discharge patients home sooner at scale - altogether leading to shorter length of stay (LOS), higher hospital throughput and lower surgical wait times.

Since 2020, adoption of SeamlessMD has grown to 67% of 300+ bed hospitals in Ontario, including for Hip & Knee surgery, to safely discharge patients sooner and cut the backlog. 

Here’s a snapshot of some Ontario organizations leveraging this transformational solution:

How do we know SeamlessMD is making a difference?

Just look at the numerous case studies and results these Ontario organizations have produced using this solution to increase same-day surgery and reduce LOS, ED visits and readmissions:

Given this level of evidence, combined with the widespread adoption of the innovation in Ontario, we believe there is a very strong association between use of SeamlessMD and the success Ontario has had in improving Hip & Knee wait times compared to the rest of Canada.

Click here to access these case studies in more detail.

Other Canadian provinces getting on board

Given the success Ontario healthcare organizations have achieved using SeamlessMD to cut wait times and the backlog, other provinces are now adopting this innovation.

Recently both Horizon Health Network and Vitalite Health Network - supported by the Government of New Brunswick - announced that all of New Brunswick is going live with SeamlessMD for Hip & Knee Replacement in 2024, along with a number of other surgical programs.

As more provinces leverage this proven innovation, we are excited to see the impact on surgical wait times in the CIHI data in the coming years.

Want to learn more about how other provinces are leveraging Digital Care Journeys to cut wait times and the backlog?

Here are more stories and results that healthcare organizations have published or presented:

• Thunder Bay Regional and St. Joseph’s Healthcare Hamilton co-present (webinar) how they both used SeamlessMD to reduce LOS, readmissions and ED visits - while increasing surgical volumes
• Sault Area Hospital uses SeamlessMD, fully integrated with MEDITECH, to reduce readmissions by 64%, ED visits by 72% and LOS by 8%.
• Halton Healthcare leverages SeamlessMD to reduce LOS by 27%, readmissions by 67% and ED visits by 26% for Hip & Knee surgery patients‍
• North Bay Regional uses SeamlessMD reduce LOS by 5 days, readmissions by 54% and ED visits by 15%

Want to chat about leveraging Digital Care Journeys to cut surgical wait times in your healthcare organization?

Contact us and let’s chat. We would love to learn more!