Surgery at the MCH: a significant reduction in waiting lists

The perioperative team at the Montreal Children’s Hospital (MCH) reached an important milestone this fall: not a single patient is now on the list of children who have been waiting for surgery for nine months or more. This is an achievement that few hospitals in Quebec can boast of having accomplished.

This refers to the list of patients who are “available” for surgery, i.e., ready to undergo surgery. It does not include patients who require treatment prior to the operation, or those who are on-hold because they are away, for example, on a trip.

Accomplishing this feat required a dedicated committee, numerous meetings and close collaboration among anesthesiologists, respiratory therapists, surgeons, nursing staff, the booking team, the administrative team, PABs and others.

The secret to their success? Mathematics. Data analysts got involved to understand how to organize the surgery schedule to reduce the waiting list, using mathematical models to determine how many days of surgery each doctor needed based on the number of patients waiting.

“This allowed us to focus on cases that had been waiting for over nine months and were most urgent, freeing up surgeons’ schedules so they could operate on these children,” says Dr. Sam Daniel, Chief of Surgery at the MCH.

Increasing capacity

A partnership was also established with the AGM Anesthesia Clinic, a specialized medical centre that was able to take on some of the less acute surgeries that did not require hospitalization.

“Thanks to this partnership, we were able to increase the number of surgeries performed, and then we reorganized the workflow,” adds Dr. Daniel.