Pilot program in Barrie will make x-rays more accessible for LTC residents

Several local organizations are teaming up to make x-rays more accessible for residents in Barrie's long-term care homes.

"In the next 60 days, we will be piloting for one year, expediting patients coming from long-term care homes to come and have an x-ray. Typically they would have these done in their long-term care homes, and they would have to wait a few days to four weeks, so we're hoping that this will allow patients to get here faster," says RVH's imaging services director Heather Gillis.

Up to ten long-term care homes in Barrie will participate in the one-year pilot project announced by the province.

"It will eliminate long wait times. It will ensure timely transportation for those residents to the hospital to get that needed diagnostic imaging," says Jane Sinclair with the County of Simcoe.

Paramedic services will also be a big part of the program.

"An ambulance and paramedics will be assigned, and they will then pick up the resident from the long-term care home and transfer them to RVH, where they will be fast-tracked to get that diagnostic imaging so they can get the care they need and back to their home in a very timely way," says Sinclair.

RVH says other than hiring a registered practical nurse, they are simply looking at a different way to offer care.

"We will have a navigator meet the patient at the hospital, we'll bring them to medical imaging, register them have their x-ray done promptly, have our radiologist here to do the interpretation quickly to determine the next steps of care for the patient," says Gillis.

There are 26 long-term care homes in the county, ten in the city of Barrie, with just over 4000 beds combined. The pilot project will only operate in Barrie, but if successful, the program could be expanded in the coming years.