Children’s Hospital at London Health Sciences Centre (LHSC) has reduced its paediatric surgery waitlist by 26 per cent for non-urgent and non-emergent cases, thanks to funding from the Make Kids Count initiative announced by the Ontario government last summer.
“This is extremely good news for our patients and their families,” said Nash Syed, President, Children’s Hospital. “We know that access to timely surgery is an important focus across our health-care landscape, and we’re proud of the improvements we’ve been able to make.”
The Make Kids Count funding was focused on expanding services and improving wait times for children’s health care in Ontario. The use of this funding to increase capacity in the operating room (OR) and efficiency in the Minor Procedure Room (MPR) was key to reducing the surgical waitlist at Children’s Hospital and improving the experience for patients and their families.
Improving operating room capacity
Children’s Hospital has a minimum of four paediatric ORs operational each weekday and performed 3,256 elective surgeries last fiscal year. Funding through Make Kids Count was used to improve operating room capacity, which led to an additional 500 surgeries being completed in the year.
“This additional funding has enabled us to provide children and families in southwestern Ontario with more rapid access to their surgeries. We look forward to continuing this momentum and ensuring that no child waits longer than required for their procedure,” said Dr. Andreana Butter, Division Head, Paediatric Surgery, Children’s Hospital.
“The funding through Make Kids Count had a direct impact on our ability to scale up the number of hours we could offer our paediatric patients in the OR,” said Jillian Holbrough, Director of Perioperative Services at LHSC.
“We're now able to complete roughly 250-300 surgeries each month."
Improving Minor Procedure Room efficiency
Launched during the pandemic, the Minor Procedure Room at Children’s Hospital allows paediatric patients the opportunity to have less-invasive procedures done in a sterile setting outside of a traditional operating room, thereby saving OR space for more complex cases. Funding from Make Kids Count was used to expand the types of procedures Children’s Hospital provides in this space. The MPR completes approximately 90-120 procedures per month.
“Funding from Make Kids Count was used to purchase new equipment for the MPR, which in turn allowed us to offer additional procedures that were traditionally done in the OR,” explained Catherine Delaney, Director of the Children’s Minor Procedure Room.
Overall impact
As a result of these changes, 54 per cent of paediatric patients are now receiving their elective surgeries within target, up from 44 per cent in early 2023.
“We are grateful to the Government of Ontario for this funding and the outcomes it has enabled. These improvements reflect our shared commitment to providing children in Ontario with timely access to specialized care,” added Syed. “We know more needs to be done to ensure every child receives their surgery within the recommended timeframe and this is why we’re continuing to advance solutions to reduce our waitlist further.”
The Make Kids Count initiative, announced by the Government of Ontario last July, provided a historic $330 million in new funding to expand paediatric health care across the province. Children’s Hospital at LHSC received $14.2 million, $3.3 million of which was for surgical optimization. The other portion of funding is being used to make additional improvements in access to care, such as the implementation of a dedicated child and adolescent mental health team in the Emergency Department, expansion of child and adolescent eating disorders services, and growth of Children’s Hospital’s pain program.
