OHQC -- Most Recent Reports

2009 Yearly Report

Download report. To request a hard copy of the report, write to ohqc@ohqc.ca.

Our overall impression of the health system this year is that there have been some real improvements, but the pace must be accelerated. For instance, wait times have shrunk for some types of surgery and high-tech imaging, but many Ontarians still wait too long for urgent cancer surgery, MRI scans, specialists or a space in a nursing home – which makes access to care an area of concern in this year’s report.

Here is an overview of some of our main findings on access to care:

The large majority of patients who need cardiac procedures are today treated within the target time.
From September 2005 to December 2008, waits for knee replacements declined from 440 days to 189 days, for hip replacements from almost a year to 162 days, and for cataract surgery from about 310 days to about 103 days.
Half of patients needing cancer surgery (categorized as Priority 2) are not getting their surgery within the medically acceptable two-week timeframe. Some are waiting twice as long.
Ontario is doing twice as many MRI scans as it did before the introduction of the Wait Times Strategy, but waits for low urgency MRI scans have fluctuated between 90 to 120 days for almost four years, well over the target of 28 days.
Access to family doctors hasn’t improved since 2006 – 7.4 percent of adults in Ontario don’t have a family doctor and about half that number, or 400,000 people, are looking for a doctor, but can’t find one.
More than half of “sicker adults” – people who described their health as “fair” or poor” – surveyed in Ontario say they wait more than a month to see a specialist after being referred. In contrast, only one in four people in Germany, the Netherlands and the US have to wait that long.
Waits for places in long-term care homes have doubled in the last two years, from 49 days to 106 days.

For the fourth straight year, the report points to the lack of system-wide information technology tools, such as electronic medical records, as one of the biggest roadblocks to a more efficient system with high-quality care. In 2007, just 25 percent of family-practice doctors in Ontario had electronic medical records, compared to 50 percent in Alberta, 98 percent in the Netherlands and 89 percent in the United Kingdom.

In other areas, the picture is more positive. Cancer survival has improved substantially for breast and colon cancer, and the use of telemedicine is growing rapidly, which greatly reduces travel and inconvenience for people who need to see a specialist. Most Ontarians rate the care they receive from their regular doctors as very good or excellent.

For more information, read the Introduction and summary of the report, or read the full report. Look out for suggestions on what you can do to improve your care throughout the report. Getting more involved is the first step. Also see What You Can Do.

Examples of what’s working well in Ontario

Our report includes examples of quality improvement initiatives around the province. These success studies are closely tied to the rest of the work we’re doing to improve the overall health of the people of Ontario. They are described in the report, and featured here as well.

Catching up with falls: A program for prevention at Kensington Gardens