2023-10-23 22:41:38
The First Line Access Window (GAP) will be improved, the Prime Minister of Health, Christian Dubé, announced on Monday. “GAP 2.0” will make it possible to respond more “effectively” to people who do not have access to a family doctor, so that they obtain a medical appointment, advice or even a referral to a professional, just by calling 811, option 3.
• Read also: Health in Quebec: towards a “2.0” first line access window
With GAP 2.0, the role of the Minister of Health is to respond more effectively to the health needs of the population and to the challenges of deadlines. “The right service, the right professional, at the right time, in the right place and every time,” notes the coordinator of access to front-line services, Michel Delamarre.
With Mr. Delamarre’s mandate and his tour of the GAPs in the regions, he was able to note the negative points and the positive points of the Guichet, in order to make improvements. With the coordinator, the Minister of Health relied on three indicators. “Late surgeries, emergencies and the Specialist Appointment Center,” he announces.
The recommended improvements to the GAP will be to extend opening hours, introduce telephone callbacks, allow patients to discuss several health problems, include more professionals and accelerate the development of the digital tool.
An improvement in emergencies since the GAP
Before the implementation of the GAP, a year ago, Minister Christian Dubé noted two problems with the health network. “We had a problem with patients who had a family doctor, but the doctors were so overwhelmed that they were not able to see them. The other problem was for those who did not have family doctors,” said the Minister of Health, in an interview with TVA Nouvelles.
In May 2022, the Cabinet accepted an agreement with doctors, where they had to ensure that they properly “filtered” patient requests. “We call that relevance. Do I really need these people who don’t have family doctors or can we send them to triage?” explains Mr. Dubé.
Since his arrival a year ago, more than 1.5 million calls have been made to the Access Desk telephone line, or between 5,000 to 7,000 calls every day.
With the Front Line Access Desk, Minister Christian Dubé is seeing improvements in the emergency department. “In the emergency room, it’s no longer 21 hours of waiting on a stretcher, we’re back at 5 p.m. The guy is 2 p.m. The more we are able to prevent people from going to the emergency room, the more we will be able to properly treat those who really need to be there,” he explains. To improve access to care by relieving emergency room congestion, the solution was to turn to improving the GAP.
The average occupancy rate in hospitals across Quebec is 122%. For the Minister of Health, “we must resolve the problem at its root. What needs to be done upstream for that to change?” he concludes.
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