Nearly 42,000 additional procedures in wait time priority areas were performed in Canada outside Quebec in 2005?2006 compared to the previous year, according to a new study by the Canadian Institute for Health Information (CIHI).
This represents an annual increase of 7%, after adjusting for population growth and aging, in the combined total number of procedures in all four surgical wait time priority areas (hip and knee replacements, cataracts, cardiac revascularization and cancer). The increase is largely due to a surge in the number of hip and knee replacements and cataract surgeries. Surgical rates for cardiac revascularization and cancer also saw modest growth between 2004?2005 and 2005?2006. By comparison, the rate of surgeries outside priority areas increased by 2% over the same period, after taking population growth and aging into account.
The CIHI study, Surgical Volume Trends Within and Beyond Wait Time Priority Areas, tracks the rates of inpatient and day surgery procedures performed in Canada outside of Quebec between 2001?2002 and 2005?2006. The priority areas for wait time reductions were identified by Canada?s first ministers in the fall of 2004.
?Increasing the number of surgeries is one strategy being used to reduce wait times. But some have questioned whether the focus on priority areas has come at the expense of other types of surgery,? says CIHI President and CEO, Glenda Yeates. ?Our study shows that even with last year?s significant growth in priority area procedures, the number of patients receiving other types of surgeries has remained relatively stable overall.?
While thousands of patients receive priority area procedures every year, they account for less than one-fifth of all surgeries performed annually. In 2005?2006, more than two million Canadians outside of Quebec had procedures for conditions (other than pregnancy or trauma) that were outside the wait time priority areas.