During the pandemic, many hospitals have cancelled or postponed surgeries to deal with an influx of patients with COVID-19.
Earlier this year, Ontario had a pandemic backlog of one million surgeries. Though some progress has been made in reducing the list of patients in the province awaiting operations, long wait times remain for elective surgeries in particular, which were deprioritized in favour of medically pressing procedures.
“Integrating this made-in-Ontario software in hospitals across Eastern Ontario will mean shorter wait times for patients awaiting surgery.”
To help address this issue, the Government of Ontario is funding the implementation of a centralized waitlist platform built by Kingston-based healthtech company Novari Health.
The hub, which will service Eastern Ontario, is designed to improve the coordination of surgical services between Ottawa Region hospitals. The hope is that some patients may be able to receive surgery more quickly at another hospital with greater capacity, through the new software platform.
“Integrating this made-in-Ontario software in hospitals across Eastern Ontario will mean shorter wait times for patients awaiting surgery and a more efficient use of hospital resources,” said Ontario Deputy Premier and Minister of Health Sylvia Jones.
The Novari Health platform will consolidate patients awaiting surgery into a real-time regional waitlist system with interactive mapping and analytics tools. It will integrate with existing hospital information technology systems and provide healthcare players with a better overall picture of backlogs so they can speed up wait times and identify bottlenecks at various stages of the surgical process.
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As Novari Health president John Sinclair noted, the solution will give hospitals “the tools they need to coordinate surgical services in real-time within the region.”
Founded in 2003, Novari Health designs, builds, and implements enterprise-scale software-as-a-service solutions that improve access to care, coordination of care, and the delivery of healthcare services.
This project with Novari Health is part of a broader investment by the Ontario government to improve surgey wait times. In total, Ontario is investing over $300 million in 2022–23 as part of the province’s “surgical recovery strategy” that will increase scheduled surgeries, procedures and diagnostic imaging services that were hit the hardest during COVID-19.
According to the Government of Ontario, all hospitals in the Ottawa Region that perform adult surgeries will be included in the new central surgical waitlist initiative.
Feature image courtesy Novari Health.