McGuinty Government Expands Successful Pay-for-Results Program

St. Catharines - Ontario is expanding its successful Pay-for-Results Program, which will help the St. Catharines General Hospital (also known as the Queenston Street Site of the Niagara Health System) reduce ER wait times and ensure that residents of Niagara can get the emergency care they need, sooner, St. Catharines MPP Jim Bradley announced today.

The St. Catharines General will receive more than $759,000 in Pay-for-Results funding to implement initiatives that will help it further reduce ER wait times for patients in St. Catharines.

"Patients deserve timely, high quality care when sudden injury or illness take them to the hospital ER," said Bradley. "We continue to work with the NHS and hospitals around the province to ensure their ERs are running as efficiently as possible."

Since it was created in 2008, the program has already helped the 46 participating hospitals reduce ER wait times in Ontario by 23 per cent. The program helps hospitals meet specific ER wait time reduction targets.

This year, 71 Ontario hospitals will receive Pay-for-Results funding. All have committed to treating more patients within the targets, aiming to improve by 15 per cent over the course of the year.

To reach the target, hospitals will use the funds to do things like:

• expand staffing as part of emergency department teams and reorganize how these teams interact to encourage more collaboration,
• create designated areas within the ER to ensure rapid assessment and to improve patient flow.

Ontario now reports all surgical and ER wait times online at Return to News Listings