UPFRONT | News hEALTh CARE Take 5 Ontario invests $75M to speed up patient wait times The Ontario govern-ment is investing $75.8 million this year to support health-care providers in continuing to reduce patient wait times across the prov-ince, the Ontario Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care said. The money also will be used to provide more than 6,800 additional surgi-cal procedures and more than 220,000 hours of MRI and CT scans, the ministry said. Ensuring people across the province have faster ac-cess to surgical and diagnos-tic procedures is part of Ontario’s Action Plan for Health Care “helping deliver the right care at the right time and in the right place,” the ministry said. Already, according to data from the province, wait times for surgeries and diag-nostic procedures are getting shorter across Ontario. “Since 2005, our govern-ment has dedicated funding to reduce wait times for sur-gical and diagnostic imaging procedures. Thanks to these investments and the consist-ent year-over-year efforts at the local level, we have in-creased access to timely procedures and will continue to do so to ensure better health outcomes for patients across Ontario,” said Deb Matthews, minister of health and long-term care. The province has reported “great progress” in reducing wait times for key procedures, and offered the following sta-tistics for June 2013: • 94 per cent of cataract surgeries were performed within the 182-day target • 89 per cent of hip 8 Canadian Chiropractor October 2013 For more information on the FCC process, visit www. health.alberta.ca. number of countries with legislation to recognize and regulate the chiropractic profession countries where the title “physician” is authorized for chiropractors www.canadianchiropractor.ca Illustration: Brian Fray replacements were per-formed within the 182-day target • 85 per cent of knee re-placements were per-formed within the 182-day target • 61 per cent of non-urgent MRIs were performed within the 28-day target • 87 per cent of CT scans performed were within the 28-day target • 98 per cent of general surgeries were performed within the 182-day target • 98 per cent of cancer sur-geries were performed within the 84-day target • 92 per cent of pediatric surgeries were performed within the 182-day target Since 2005, Ontario has publicly reported on wait times for surgical and diagnostic im-aging procedures. The province currently reports on wait times for over 190 different surgical and diagnostic procedures. Since 2003, Ontario has in-vested more than $1.7 billion for approximately three million additional procedures to help reduce wait times. For the sixth consecutive year, Ontario received straight A’s from the Canada-wide Wait Time Alliance for meet-ing performance targets in reducing wait times in five priority health-service areas – hip replacements, knee re-placements, cataract surgery, radiation oncology and car-diac services. Ontario’s Wait Time website was rated as one of the best in Canada (grade of A) by the Wait Time Alliance, the ministry said. NUMbER CRUNChING The World Federation of Chiropractic reports on the current status of the profession to the World Health Organization. In its 2012 report, WFC presented some interesting statistics. Global view total number of chiropractors in the U.S. — the largest in the world 75,000 41 number of chiropractic programs that exist around the world 48 4
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