OBJECTIVES To explore emergency department (ED) patient expectations regarding staff communication with patients, wait times, the triage process and information management. METHODS We conducted a cross-sectional English-language telephone survey among patients aged 18 years or older who visited the EDs in the Calgary Health Region in 2002. Survey items were based on a preceding qualitative st...

As leading barriers to specialist care, wait times are at the forefront of the Canadian healthcare policy agenda. However, knowledge is limited about how wait times affect patients' lives. We utilized the 2010 Canadian Community Health Survey to examine the experience of patients requiring a consultation with a medical specialist for a new condition. Multivariate logistic regression predicted t...

PROBLEM ADDRESSED Patients have to wait too long to see their family physicians. Open access, a new approach to office scheduling, has shown promise in reducing patient wait times to see primary care physicians. OBJECTIVE OF PROGRAM To offer same-day appointments to most patients who call the office, thus reducing wait times as measured by the third available appointment. Reductions in no-sho...

INTRODUCTION Although prognostic differences between screen-detected, interval and symptomatic breast cancers are known, factors associated with wait times to diagnosis among these three groups have not been studied. METHODS Of the 16,373 invasive breast cancers diagnosed between January 1, 1995 and December 31, 2003 in a cohort of Ontario women aged 50 to 69, a random sample (N = 2,615) were...

OBJECTIVE The emergency department (ED) left-without-being-seen (LWBS) rate is a performance indicator, although there is limited knowledge about why people leave, or whether they seek alternate care. We studied characteristics of ED LWBS patients to determine factors associated with LWBS. METHODS We collected demographic data on LWBS patients at two urban hospitals. Sequential LWBS patients ...