‘We need a better coordination’: Quebec Health Minister on naming Access Coordinator

Health Minister Christian Dubé in Montreal on Monday to announce the next steps in his health reform Bill 15 – deposed in the Spring.

The creation of an access coordinator whose mission will be to respond more effectively to the health needs of the population, and to the issues of delays in emergency and surgical services.

Michel Delamarre – coming out of retirement to take on the role – most recently he was President and CEO of the regional health authority in the Quebec City region.

Delmarre has been touring the province for the last few months and unveiled his recommendations, which are set to be deployed as early as December.

He’ll begin his mandate by focusing on the front-line access counter guichet known as GAP – as a non-emergency option for greater efficiency

The report shows that the GAP is currently a single point of entry for people without a family doctor, who are now cared for by the right professional at the right time. “More than 1.5 million calls have been received at GAP since September 2022, which currently represents between 5,000 and 7,000 calls a day from patients who have picked up the phone instead of turning to the emergency department,” said the Health Ministry in a press release.

“I think they’ll see an improvement on key targets that we have, the waiting time for example at the emergency, the waiting time of getting the right surgery at the right time,” said Dubé at the press conference on Monday. “I think the specialist have done quite a good job on certain of our targets, especially for surgery that are over a year. So I think people will see concretely on the target that we have made public that it will continue to improve. The challenge is all our PDG sometimes they don’t have all the tools or they need some assistance in the implementation of best practices and that will be [Michel Delamarre’s] job.”

Dubé saying he knows this isn’t going to happen overnight and is asking for patience.

“It takes time. I would love this to be like a magic band, but it doesn’t work that way. As you know, we have 330,000 employees. So we need to have a better coordination. So if there is one word to summarize today, it’s coordination. And I think that given now that we know on what we should concentrate, okay, urgencies, surgeries, and the appointment between a general practitioner and a specialist, if we focus on those three, people will notice the difference that will continue to improve. But now we need a better coordination.”

The Health ministry says Delamarre’s work aims to enable patients to:

• obtain a consultation with the right professional at the right time, and avoid having to resort to an emergency;
• be redirected from the ER to their own home, with the care and services they need to avoid hospitalization;
• be quickly attended to within hours of their stay in the ER when they need to have a consultation with a specialist. This will enable faster discharge from the emergency department and free up a bed;
• have access to a bed on the floors more quickly if hospitalization is required, and free up the bed occupied in the emergency department;
• to be accompanied by the necessary services when discharged from hospital, and to have places available to accommodate them if necessary. 

“We said it when we unveiled our Health Plan: it’s all about execution. We’ve succeeded with vaccinations, and we’re going to succeed with emergencies and surgeries. Our top priority is to share best practices in order to promote access to services for all Quebecers. [Michel] Delamarre is a highly experienced manager, and the ideal person to take up the challenge of coordinating the network and implementing the Health Plan with brio. It’s a new role in the network that doesn’t currently exist, but it’s exactly in line with what we want to do in terms of management with Bill 15 to make our network more efficient,” added Dubé in a press release.