Why are Strathmore District Health Services wait times not posted?

The emergency department is a busy part of the healthcare system and the time that patients could be waiting in an emergency department is important for them to be aware of.  

On the Alberta Health Services (AHS) website there are Calgary hospital wait times listed for places like Alberta Childrens Hospital, South Calgary Health Centre, and the Peter Lougheed Hospital but when it comes to the more rural communities, like Strathmore no wait times are listed for patients.  

In a statement made by AHS, they said that their online wait times are a complex system that monitors the current status of patient volumes, incoming EMS volumes, the severity of the patient conditions, and available resources. They stated that this information is used to help calculate and estimate wait time for some of the emergency departments and urgent care centres across the province. 

“The Strathmore Hospital (Strathmore District Health Services) does not currently have the underlying system which would allow them to track this information, and therefore, it is not possible to add the online wait times for this site at this time.” 

AHS also stated that with over 100 hospitals in Alberta, they must add wait times in phases, both in terms of resources and budgets and they can only do it in places where the supporting system is in place.  

“It is our goal to continue to expand the availability of the online wait times to more centers, as we know it is a valuable tool for Albertans.”  

To help the emergency departments with their wait times AHS has added 114 full-time nursing staff in their 16 largest hospitals and in some of the suburban hospitals as well to ensure that patient care is fast, efficient, and safe.  

AHS says that this will reduce the time that patients and paramedics spend at the hospital by 45 minutes. 

Overall across Alberta from November 2022 to January 2023 

• Emergency department wait times to see a doctor has been reduced by 10 percent to 6.4 hours. 

• Total time spent in the emergency department for admitted patients has been reduced by 5 percent to 40 hours. 

• Total time in the emergency department for discharged patients remains stable at 11.8 hours.  

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