Nova Scotians vote on health-care improvements for province

Letting patients take an appointment slot if someone misses their scheduled one, receiving appointment letters by email, and allowing audiologist to send direct referrals to ear, nose, and throat physicians topped the list of improvements Nova Scotians want to see to the system.

According to a Monday news release from the province, the Healthcare Improvement Challenge, which asked health-care providers and people with jobs connected to the system to make suggestions on ways to better Nova Scotia health care, received more than 2,200 submissions. Those ideas were narrowed down to a top 20 shortlist, which the public could vote on to determine a top 10.

“The people who know our health-care system best told us what common-sense, low-cost and easy-to-implement improvements we could make, and Nova Scotians chose those they felt would have the biggest impact,” said Premier Tim Houston in the release. “The votes are in and now it’s time for us to get to work to make them happen.”

Aside from the top three, Nova Scotians voted on:

• supporting continuing care assistants to allow them to work to the full scope of their practice
• installing monitors or screens in all emergency departments to display public health information and available wait times, among other information
• enabling hospital caller ID so patients can see when health-care providers are trying to reach them
• stopping the use of emergency departments for pre-operative bloodwork for patients scheduled to have a Monday morning procedures
• allowing patients to pre-register for online by sending them a link to fill out a form ahead of a surgery or specialist appointment
• developing a registration app
• allowing patients to cancel diagnostic imaging appointments online

According to the release, 8,722 people submitted 20,392 votes to the challenge, which ran from Dec. 20 to Jan. 8.

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