Horizon Health officials working to address capacity issues at hospitals

Top health officials in New Brunswick met to discuss collaborative care clinics and overcrowding challenges.

Since 2023, Horizon Health Network hospitals have been battling regularly capacity issues of over 100 per cent.

A large chunk of those capacity concerns have to do with patients being forced to wait in-hospital for beds in long-term care that are not available.

One method that has been introduced in the creation of “diversion teams”. The team is made up of physiotherapists, occupational therapists and social workers who will assess someone that comes into the emergency room to see if they can get the care they required at home or elsewhere.

“This team is able to see these patients and these families and help work with the emergency room physicians to create a plan in the community where patients can safely be discharged home rather than being admitted to hospital,” Dr. Elizabeth McCaw, physician program lead for Horizon, told the health networks board of directors during a quarterly meeting in Saint John Thursday.

“It’s not as simple as saying that patient’s not sick enough, they don’t need to come in. We know that these families and these patients need more support, and so this team has been able to provide that and really help sustain and support these patients.”

Dr. McCaw says to date, the program has helped 267 patients avoid a hospital stay, saving an estimated 4,000 days of hospital stays collectively. There is also the creation of what is being called “internal nursing beds.”

David Arbeau, who oversees Horizon’s operations, patient flow and ambulatory care, says the idea is about creating additional space where patients can actually be moved too and get nursing home level care in the same environment.

“What it will do, in turn, is free up medical beds,” says Arbeau. “Where we can move these boarded patients and hallway patients to. So, it really isn’t having additional patients in the facility, it’s opening up additional proper care environments for patients who are nursing home level care.”

When asked if there is any concern the creation of these beds would take the pressure off of the province to build more long-term-care beds, Horizon President and CEO, Margaret Melanson, says it’s important to act now and not wait until the beds are built.

“My understanding is that we have probably 10,000 New Brunswickers every year who are reaching a senior age category, and of the 10,000, I’m hearing maybe as many as 600 may require some type of long term care now or in the future,” says Melanson.

“If it seems as though the community is addressing these needs appropriately, we would certainly pull back on the work that we’re undertaking. However, today we feel that we need to proceed just to be able to be as proactive as possible.”

The meeting also featured an update on the status of the newly established collaborative care clinics around the province. The previously established clinics vary in stages, with the health network in the process of creating an online dashboard so New Brunswick can track the progress of the clinics.

That includes both building progress, and recruitment progress.

“I would say right now, the locations we feel is a prime issue,” says Melanson. “Partly as well, because when we are recruiting new physicians, what’s their first question? Where am I going to work? And so, we want to make sure we have at least these sites identified.”

“We understand the urgency of the situation,” says Horizon board chair Susan Harley. “We’re signing leases, we’re engaging in the construction work, and we’re hiring physicians, nurses, nurse practitioners all at the same time. So, it’s full steam ahead.”

For more New Brunswick news, visit our dedicated provincial page.