While there has been significant progress to improve wait times for specific health care procedures, as well as to manage centralized information on wait times, plenty of gaps still remain, says the Health Council of Canada.

In its latest report, released Tuesday, the group says many jurisdictions are doing more about the problem of long wait times for such health procedures as joint replacements, cancer and heart treatments, and sight restoration. Many areas are also reporting on their wait times in more accessible ways.

But they also note that the information needed to paint a cross-Canada picture and to allow Canadians to see changes over time and to compare wait times data from different parts of the country is not available from all jurisdictions -- despite widespread recognition that it should be.

Ottawa set up a $5.5-billion Wait Times Reduction Fund in 2004 as part of a 10-year plan to strengthen health care. In return, provincial governments agreed to reduce wait times in priority clinical areas, and to establish comparable indicators of access to health care professionals, diagnostic and treatment procedures.

But the provinces still have not established pan-Canadian benchmarks for diagnostic imaging nor have they established comparable indicators of access. Nor have they developed "wait time guarantees" which the federal government promised in the last election.

"Except for Ontario, none of the jurisdictions that signed on in response to the federal budget has even discussed in theory how a person might go about invoking the guarantee," says the report.

Yet, overall, the Health Council says the system is improving.

"Clearly there has been progress [in wait times], and we can see many areas where jurisdictions are doing more and reporting in more accessible ways to citizens," said Dr. Jeanne Besner, chair of the Health Council of Canada, which monitors and reports on the progress of health care renewal in Canada.

Although provinces and territories report wait times in different ways, information shows median wait times for non-emergency care have clearly declined for some services. For example:

  • In British Columbia, the wait time for cataract surgery has been reduced to 7.6 weeks from 9.9 weeks;
  • In Ontario, the wait time for radiation for cancer care has been reduced to 4.4 weeks from 6.4 weeks;
  • In Alberta, the wait time for hip replacement has been reduced to 12 weeks from 16 weeks and for knee replacement has dropped to 17 weeks from 22 weeks.

They note, as well, that information on wait times is moving its way more in the public realm, which means that wait lists are beginning to be managed centrally in a fair and logical way. That's a vast improvement from previous systems in which surgeons often kept their own waiting lists and data were rarely compiled at the provincial, regional or hospital level.

"Moving wait time information out of doctors' offices and onto the Internet has been no small task," says the report. "These information systems ensure that patients can be put in line fairly and equitably, based on the urgency of their need for care."

But governments continue to report wait times in different ways: some report median wait times, some report averages, and others use the percentage of cases completed within a certain time period. Only four provinces report trends. Some governments report wait times for specific procedures; others, for specific regions or hospitals.