Overview

For the majority of the Canadian public, the health-care system and health-care issues represent the number one priorities for governments across the country. Within our publicly funded health-care system fair access to medical services is a primary concern. Wait times vary substantially from doctor to doctor and hospital to hospital, and the length of time that patients wait for services is not always determined by the severity of their illness. Wait time is determined by a number of factors including the capacity of the health-care system, the number of patients on wait lists, and the number of urgent/emergent cases arising while elective cases are waiting. Important criteria for prioritizing wait lists for consultation or referral services, medical imaging procedures, and surgery include severity, urgency, need, and expected benefit. My research is focused on quality improvement/quality assurance issues related to providing pediatric medical imaging services to the children of British Columbia and the Yukon.

Research

Understanding and reducing wait times for MRI scans at BC Children's Hospital
We are currently working on a study that will help us to better understand wait times for MRI scans at BC Children's Hospital and the resources that would be needed to reduce them. By generating wait time benchmarks for a limited number of medical conditions (headache, inflammatory bowel disease, tetralogy of Fallot, medulloblastoma, osteomyelitis), we will be able to better prioritize our patients' access to MRI, ensuring patients with more urgent conditions receive services ahead of those with less urgent conditions, and patients with approximately the same degree of urgency will wait about the same length of time regardless of where they live in the Province of BC or the Yukon Territory. This approach may have the potential to be applied to a wide range of medical conditions that requiring imaging services beyond the use of MRI..

Grants

Medical Allied Staff Engagement Fund - Mawson J, Ameja J, Potts J, Sargent M, Strahlendorf C. Benchmarking MRI wait times to enhance service delivery to pediatric patients in British Columbia, 2017-2019