Timely care in Urgent Care Centres
Our Urgent Care Centres consistently have excellent wait/treatment times for non-emergency patients, who are assessed, treated and discharged in two to three hours.
| ER Departments Treat |
|---|
Call 911 if you have severe chest pain, |
| Urgent Care Centres Treat |
Urgent Care Centres have access to services such as x-rays, lab tests and pharmacy. Ambulances do not bring emergency cases to Urgent Care Centres. |
When to call 911
Call 911 with severe chest pain, stroke symptoms (sudden dizziness/loss of vision or numbness in face, arm or leg) or any serious condition which may be worsening. Call 911 when time is of the essence.
EMERGENCY DEPARTMENTS - Open 24/7
- Niagara Falls – Greater Niagara General Site, Portage Rd.
- St. Catharines — St. Catharines General Site, Queenston St.
- Welland — Welland Site, Third St.
URGENT CARE CENTRES - Open Daily
- Fort Erie — Douglas Memorial Site, Bertie St., Open 24 hours/day
- Port Colborne — Port Colborne Site, Sugarloaf St., Open 24 hours/day
- St. Catharines — Ontario Street Site, 8 a.m. to 10 p.m. daily
WALK-IN CLINICS - Open Monday-Friday
- Niagara-on-the-Lake — Niagara-on-the-Lake Site, Wellington St., Mon. to Fri. 9:30 a.m. to Noon, 2 to 4:30 p.m.
RN Shari Michaud has worked for more than 20 years in ERs and Urgent Care Centres at most Niagara Health sites. She now works full time at Douglas Memorial Site’s Urgent Care Centre.
When is it appropriate to use an Urgent Care Centre?
That is the question Niagara residents need the answer to, specifically so they can avoid long wait times in our three ERs.
“It’s no secret that wait and treatment times in our Niagara Falls, St. Catharines and Welland ERs continue to be higher than the provincial average,” says Vice President Patient Services Anne Atkinson. “Every week, hundreds of adults and children are spending hours in busy hospital ERs for treatment of a minor injury or ailment, when they could be in and out of an Urgent Care Centre more quickly.”
“Our Urgent Care Centres consistently have excellent wait/treatment times for non-emergency patients, who are assessed, treated and discharged in two to three hours,” Anne explains. “Compare this to the five to seven hours that non-emergency patients wait for treatment in our ERs. We are trying to get the word out that Urgent Care is the best option for quick treatment for those non-emergency patients, sometimes called low-acuity patients (Canadian Triage Acuity Scale Level 4 and 5).” See graph below.
Interestingly, the largest number (45%) of low-acuity patients using Niagara Health ERs is in the 18 to 45 age group. Each month, while about 2,600 low-acuity patients wait in an ER waiting room to be diagnosed and treated, ER physicians and nurses inside the unit are spending the bulk of their time with serious or high-acuity older patients. Clinicians are also caring for patients waiting for an inpatient bed. The result is a full ER – quite simply, there’s not enough physical space to treat more patients.
“We have several initiatives in place to address this recurring backlog,” Anne says. “We’re tightening up our hospital discharge processes, as well as our bed and room cleaning turnaround times to try and get patients into beds on the inpatient units more quickly. We’re working with community partners to safely and quickly discharge patients who no longer need hospital care but do need more care at home.
“We’ve opened Rapid Assessment or CSI areas at our three ERs to stream some patients who don’t need emergency treatment. We’ve brought in two ER physicians to be on duty during peak hours. We’re working with Niagara EMS to balance out the distribution and destination of ambulances to ERs and Urgent Care Centres, particularly in south Niagara. And last, but certainly not least, we’re recommending that non-emergency patients go to a walk-in clinic or urgent care centre in their own community or a neighbouring community.”
A Registered Nurse’s perspective
Registered Nurse Shari Michaud sees about two dozen patients each dayshift at Douglas Memorial Site’s Urgent Care Centre and she says there’s room for more. “We could definitely see many more patients at Port Colborne and Douglas Memorial Urgent Care Centres. We have enough nursing staff and physician coverage and we have enough space to treat them. Our treatment times are low, which shows we have good patient flow in and out.”
Shari has worked for more than 20 years at Niagara Falls and Welland ERs, as well as Port Colborne Site’s Urgent Care Centre. She is now permanently stationed at Douglas Memorial Site. “I live in nearby Sherkston and know that Fort Erie residents are very committed to their hospital,” Shari says. “They are very confident in the services we provide and that good news is spreading. We are starting to see more and more people from neighbouring communities in our Urgent Care Centres, which is great.”
“Lately, we have been seeing more serious cases than we would like – high-acuity patients who should really be in a full-service ER. It can be a struggle for us to give these patients the resources they need at the Urgent Care Centre. We can only provide that level of care temporarily. We stabilize emergency cases and then transfer them to a larger centre, where they can get the diagnostic testing and specialist support they need. We work with our partner sites and departments as a unified team, to make sure patients are being transferred as efficiently as possible. We’re generally pretty successful in achieving that, but it’s better if patients suffering chest pain, stroke symptoms or severe abdominal pain call 911.
“What is also a concern for my colleagues and me is the amount of misinformation still out there among some community elements. A lot of people don’t realize we’re open 24 hours a day. There’s been a lot of misinformation and some people actually believe the hospital is closed.
“We get a lot of phone calls to the Urgent Care Centre asking about whether they should come in with their condition. More public education is needed so patients understand their options and when to call 911 as well as when to go to a walk-in clinic or urgent care centre.” «
