A recent study conducted in Ottawa concludes that patients dealing with serious emergencies have better outcomes if they can get into an operating room immediately.
Andrew Williams, the CEO of the Huron-Perth Healthcare Alliance agrees and points to the success in treating stroke patients immediately. Williams says the Alliance hospitals have procedures and extra staff that can be called in if needed to deal with emergencies. He says it's standard procedure to make room in operating rooms to deal with emergencies.
Williams says the key is dealing with those emergencies is having a plan in place and be prepared to deal with an emergency when it arises.
“But it's about critically looking at what you do and being ready with your team. We have on-call physicians, on-call nurses, on-call staff who can come in on a moment's notice. We have the physical resources available but it is important to respond quickly," he says. "We've seen that with things like stroke. The sooner you can get a patient who's had a stroke, treat them, the better outcomes. And that's no different when someone presents with a major trauma. The sooner you can get in, stabilize, transport to somewhere else if you need to or treat them exclusively in our facility, the better it's gonna be.”