This section is intended primarily as a resource for health care professionals about Wait Time Strategy’s Performance Improvement Initiatives.  The purpose of these initiatives is to help Ontario’s operating rooms increase efficiency in order to optimize and sustain surgical capacity as well as improve the quality of care received by patients.

• Peri-operative Improvement Expert Coaching Teams
• Innovation and Education Projects
• Surgical Efficiency Targets Program
• Critical Care Information System
• Operating Room Supply Chain Pilot Funding Application Guidelines 2007-08
• MRI and CT Decision Support Tool for Referring Physicians

Peri-operative Improvement Expert Coaching Teams are leaders in the hospital system helping other hospitals develop ways to make their operating rooms run better.  When operating rooms run well, there is better patient care, fewer cancellations of surgeries, and reduced wait times, all of which improve access for patients in Ontario.

Coaching Teams have been visiting volunteer hospitals and guiding hospital staff in creating their own Action Plan since January 2006.  Learn more on how to volunteer your hospital for a Coaching Team site visit or how to become involved as a coach.

The Innovation and Education (I&E) Fund was a one-time grant available through the Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care’s Wait Time Strategy.  The funds supported various projects that were implemented to improve the efficiency and quality of care delivery for patients in hospitals across Ontario.  Fifty-four projects were implemented in 2004/05 and focused on the following important themes :

• Innovative use of health human resources;
• Innovative use of information technology;
• Process and/or system redesign; and
• Meeting community needs.

Learn more about the resources that have been developed through the implementation of these projects.

Patient anxiety and length of stay in hospitals increase when surgery is delayed.  The purpose of the Surgical Efficiency Targets Program is to improve surgical management by providing managers with the ability to identify delays, and subsequently decrease those delays so that anxieties are reduced and quality of patient care is improved.

In February 2007, the Ontario Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care took an important and substantive step in the development and improvement of health care information management by implementing Ontario's first Critical Care Information System (CCIS) in nine adult medical/surgical ICUs across the province.

CCIS is an integral component of the province's Critical Care Strategy as it will support the information needs of the Strategy and provide the information needed to support critical care performance improvements, benchmarking, and the evaluation and impact of various other critical care initiatives, including Critical Care Response Teams (CCRTs).

For more information, please see Critical Care Strategy.

The BPS Supply Chain Secretariat and the OHA are working together to launch the Operating Room Supply Chain (OR SC) pilot program. Limited funding is being offered for the 2007-08 fiscal year to individual hospitals that are interested in targeting improvements in their operating room supply chain. The objective of this program is to assist hospitals to achieve benefits that can be garnered through select improvements :

1. Sufficient instrumentation and supplies to support the Operating Room schedule
2. Separate physical supports for clean and soiled instrumentation and supplies
3. Supply Management
4. Standardization of instrumentation and supplies
5. Standardization of vendors
6. Access management policies for vendors
7. Standardization of packaging

Hospitals who are interested in submitting applications for the OR SC pilot program must first submit a project overview to the Ontario Health Association (OHA) by November 7, 2007. A detailed business case must then be received by the BPS Supply Chain Secretariat by December 14, 2007.

• Details on the Application Process  {PDF]
• Project Overview Template  [MS Word]

As part of the government’s ongoing efforts to reduce MRI and CT wait times and improve patient safety, the Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care and the University Health Network, in partnership with St. Joseph’s Healthcare Hamilton, developed an MRI and CT online decision support tool for use by physicians. The MRI and CT Decision Support Tool responds to physician demand for innovative MRI and CT related tools to support physician clinical decision practices and appropriateness of testing.

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