Changes coming to the base hospital

Changes to the base clinic operations will soon include the ability to book sick parade appointments online.

In the New Year, Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) members may notice a few differences at the Canadian Force Health Services Centre (Pacific) (CF H Svcs C(P)), colloquially known as the Base Medical Clinic.

To increase the efficiency of unscheduled appointments, all unscheduled appointments will be moved to Care Delivery Unit (CDU) 3 in the Clinic’s main building, as opposed to being done separately under the previous Urgent Care model.

The change comes following the Defence Reduction Action Plan (DRAP), a nation-wide restructuring program that imposed new funding pressures and resulted in the loss of several Public Service employees.

“We had to look closely at how we deliver primary care to ensure it was as efficient as possible,” says LCol Joane Simard, Commanding Officer of CF H Svcs C (P). “Through collaborative consultation and review, we saw changes could be made so we took the steps toward the course we thought will optimize access to care and decrease wait times.”

To this effect, CDU 1 and 3 staff swapped locations within the Clinic. CDU 3 and the old Urgent Care Clinic have combined into a Duty CDU to align support to the Fleet and look after unscheduled appointments.

LCol Simard wants to assure people that there will be no noticeable difference in care at the Base Clinic, aside from some patients going to a different area of the facility to see their physicians.

“We are still providing the same level and quality of care by the same physicians,” she says. “This is an efficiency and consolidation process rather than a restructuring.”

Changes are also on their way for how CF H Svcs C (P) handles its day-to-day appointments. Currently, CAF members arrive at the hospital at 7:30 a.m. and wait up to several hours to be seen. The medium term will see the introduction of limited sick parade booking and patient self-booking up to 48 hours in advance.

The new online system will offer service members to schedule a time for non-urgent sick parade appointments and show up 15 minutes early, rather than the current wait times.  These will be abbreviated appointments to deal with walk-in type issues such as ear aches and acute injuries and should not be used for continuing care of long term problems.

“People were just waiting too long,” says LCol Simard. “When you’ve got people in Fleet School on courses and tight timelines, they can’t wait five hours to get care. It doesn’t make any sense.”

The future electronic scheduling system is still a ways off, with plans for implementation later this spring, but LCol Simard is still excited as they will be testing a paper/phone version soon.

“We have the utmost confidence these changes will significantly improve access to care,” she says. “We’re dedicated to giving people the most responsive and effective care they can get, and with this we expect to decrease wait times and address administrative needs in a more timely manner.”

-Shawn O’Hara, Staff Writer