When The Clock Starts Ticking: Wait Times in Primary Care

Figure I: Percent (%) of Population Accessing a Physician withinDefined Wait Times In Six Developed CountriesAustralia Canada NewZealandUnitedKingdomUnitedStatesGermanySame DayAppointment toSee PhysicianWait of 6 Days orMore to SeePhysicianWait of MoreThan 4 Weeks toSee a Specialist54 27 60 41 337 25 2 13 1946 57 22 40 60 23Sources of Information:1) Commonwealth Fund 2004, Primary Care and Health System Performance: Adults’ Experiencesin Five Countries (access to physician when sick or need medical attention on same day or afterwait of six days or more)2) Commonwealth Fund 2005, 2005 International Health Policy Survey (access to specialist aftermore than four weeks)________________________________________________________________________Sweden and Norway have each taken unique approaches to managing primary care waittimes. Their experiences were presented at an Ottawa conference in March 2006: Tamingof the Queue III. Sweden guarantees same-day access to a primary care centre (notnecessarily to a physician) and access to a physician within seven days. Sweden’s waittime guarantee also includes a 90-day maximum to see a specialist with another 90-daymaximum following the specialist visit for starting specialty treatment. (See Figure II.)This linear approach to establishing wait time guarantees could stimulate further thinkingabout how Canadians address the challenges of primary care wait times in this country.________________________________________________________________________Figure II: Sweden’s Wait Time Guarantee079090Guaranteed accessto local primarycare centre samedayAccess to see aphysician withinseven daysMaximum ninetydays to see aspecialistTreatment startedmaximum ninetydays from seeing aspecialist5