Emergency Department Wait Times:
LHSC provides regularly updated wait times for our Adult Emergency Departments and our Children’s Hospital Emergency Department.
They are available here:
Procedure Wait Times:
In October 2005 the Ministry of Health and Long Term Care launched a web site -- Ontario Wait Times -- to report on wait times for certain procedures at select Ontario hospitals.
This web site is part of the provincial government's Wait Time Strategy (WTS), established to reduce wait times in five key health services:
- Cancer surgery
- Select Cardiac procedures (angioplasty, angiography and bypass surgery)
- Hip and Knee total joint replacements
- Cataract surgery
- MRI and CT exams
Visitors to Ontario Wait Times can generate a list of hospitals and their reported wait times for the above procedures. The web site gives the user a snapshot of wait times for a two-month time period (for example, August/September).
Wait times are measured in days, and reflect the length of time from the decision to have surgery to the completion of the procedure, for those patients who had surgery within the identified time period. The content on the WTS web site is updated regularly.
Tracking wait times in Ontario is an important step towards improving access to health services. It will help identify ways to increase efficiencies, standardize best practices and target funding to help reduce wait times. At LHSC, we remain dedicated to improving access to care and continue our work to reduce wait times.
