The Ontario government is implementing a plan to increase access and reduce wait times for five major health services: cancer surgery, cardiac procedures, cataract surgery, hip and knee replacements, as well as MRI and CT exams.

Ontario's Wait Time Strategy is tackling wait times on a number of fronts :

• Significantly increasing the number of procedures to reduce the backlog that has developed over the last decade
• Investing in new, more efficient technology such as MRI machines and extending hours of operations
• Standardizing best practices for both medical and administrative functions in order to improve patient flow and efficiency
• Collecting and reporting accurate and up-to-date data on wait times to allow better decision making and increase accountability

The plan was developed with unprecedented input from experts from across Ontario. Hospitals – supported by the provincial government – have the key responsibility for implementing it.

An important part of the Wait Time Strategy is the development of a single wait time information system for Ontario to collect accurate and timely data. By December 2006, this system will be established in approximately 50 Ontario hospitals, representing more than 80 per cent of the total volume for the five health services funded through the Wait Times Strategy. Eventually, this new system could track wait times for all surgical procedures in Ontario.

The Wait Times Information System will help doctors and hospitals work together to better understand and prioritize their patients. It will also help hospitals and the government to better target their resources to where they will have the most impact. Patients can also use reports from this system, in consultation with their primary health care provider, to make informed choices about where to be referred for quicker service.

More information on the Wait Time Strategy, as well as expert panel reports, are available below.

• Message from Dr. Alan Hudson, Lead of the Wait Time Strategy
• Wait Time Strategy Overview [PDF]
• Wait Time Strategy Summary [PDF]
• Wait Times Update - September 19, 2006 [PDF]
• Wait Times Update - March 28, 2006 [PDF]
• Wait Times Update - December 15, 2005 [PDF]
• Wait Times Update - August 16, 2005 [PDF]
• Wait Times Update - March 29, 2005 [PDF]

REPORTS
Sept 2005	Report of the Cancer Surgery Expert Panel [PDF]
Sept 2005	Report of the Total Hip and Knee Joint Replacement Expert Panel [PDF]
July 2005	Report of the Cataract Surgery Expert Panel [PDF]
June 2005	Report of the Surgical Process Analysis and Improvement Expert Panel [PDF]
April 2005	MRI and CT Expert Panel Phase One Report [PDF]
April 2005	Wait Time Information Strategy for Ontario [PDF]
April 2005	Access to Health Services in Ontario: ICES Atlas*
March 2005	Cardiac Care Network of Ontario : Optimizing Access to Advanced Cardiac Care - A Ten-Point Plan of Action  [PDF]
March 2005	Final Report of the Ontario Critical Care Steering Committee  [PDF]
To view PDF format files, you need to have Adobe Acrobat® Reader installed on your computer.    You can download this free software from the Adobe Web site.

*The wait times information reported on this website is captured and analyzed by different methods than the information reported in the ICES Access to Health Services report. These two sources of information cannot be directly compared. Reasons why these data sets are not comparable include: the same set of hospitals are not included, the same procedures (for cancer) are not included, and the same number of procedures are not included.

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