BACKGROUND The Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology (OB/GYN) at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS) tested various, new system-restructuring ideas such as varying number of different types of nurses to reduce patient wait times for its outpatient clinic, often with little or no effect on waiting time. Witnessing little progress despite these time-intensive interventions, w...

OBJECTIVES Patients with thyroid pathology tend have longer surgical wait times. Uncertainty during this wait can have negative psychologically impact. This study aims to determine the degree of psychological morbidity in patients waiting for thyroid surgery. STUDY DESIGN Prospectively assessing patients pre- and postoperative psychological morbidity (level 2c). METHODS Patients waiting for...

BACKGROUND Extracorporeal shock wave lithotripsy (ESWL) is a definitive, ambulatory and non-invasive modality for treating kidney stones. ESWL is not available in all urban centres and many Canadians must either travel, sometimes out of province, or wait to have this procedure performed. We sought to evaluate the variability in access to ESWL treatment. METHOD We compiled a comprehensive list...

OBJECTIVES (1) To describe the strategies employed by child mental health agencies to manage service demands; (2) to determine whether the types of strategies used are related to meeting Canadian Psychiatric Association (CPA) benchmarks and wait times; and, (3) to determine whether the types of strategies used are related to agency characteristics. METHODS An online questionnaire was distribu...