Ensuring timely health care

Thanks to innovative proprietary software developed by a North Bay company, more and more emergency departments (EDs) in Ontario are reducing wait times and delivering better patient care. It’s called MetricAid and it’s the brainchild of Les Blackwell, a former clerk in the ED at North Bay Regional Health Centre, and North Bay ED physician Scott Daley. MetricAid takes physician performance data – the number of patient assessments per hour, admission ratios and time to disposition – together with patient volume data and creates efficient ED physician schedules, day after day. Developed with critical funding from the Northern Ontario Heritage Fund Corporation, it is getting rave reviews. “MetricAid is truly innovative,” says Dr. Kuldeep Sidhu, Chief of Emergency Medicine at Toronto’s busy North York General Hospital, which has seen wait times cut by more than half since introducing it.