Environmental Scan - Government of Nova Scotia

Physician Resource PlanningAn Environmental Scan• We officially cover call 1 in 5 but get called about vascular consults often otherwise• One travels (at his own expense) to vascular satellite clinics in Yarmouth and Lunenburg; thesecond has recently given this up• Fairly routinely see arterial consults from the Windsor area (actually Capital District) andcertainly do the lion's share of venous surgery for the province• Practice is probably roughly 75% vascular and 25% general• Vascular surgery is resource intensive and the ability to practice it here in a "regional" settingdepends on a unique and robust set of physicians, nurses and other resources including ICU,Internal Medicine, Anaesthesia, Cardiology, Diagnostic Imaging (including 2 - 3 vascularradiologists)• Provision of vascular surgery services for the province is unorganized and ad hocGENERAL SURGERY• Five General Surgeons. General Surgery call is covered continuously.• Two of the five do primarily vascular.• One other does most of the breast surgery and will probably be gravitating more exclusivelytoward this in the next 1 - 2 years but for now participates equally in General Surgery call.• The two others are bread and butter General Surgeons; mostly GI / abdominal, a bit of headand neck.• We have General Surgery residents increasingly frequently from DFM and elsewhere. They arescheduled essentially continuously now for the next year or more.The points above about the ability to keep patients in the valley may also apply to urology andorthopaedic surgery.Background DataFigure 130 Medical Learner Report 2009-10 (Source: DFM)18.4 Colchester East Hants Health Authority (CEHHA) – Interview(s)Population Need• Health System Design− Management and physicians concerned about the number of DHAs− Supports need for funding to follow the patient− Deficient home care resources− Waitlists are manageable except for diagnostic imaging services159 | Page Social Sector Metrics Inc. & Health Intelligence Inc. | 12/31/2011