Streamlining Emergency Care at CCH
2025-09-19
Hospitals across Ontario,
including Cornwall Community Hospital (CCH), are working to improve access and
flow in their Emergency Departments to better manage increasing patient
volumes.
A key part of this effort is
reducing ambulance offload time, which is the moment when paramedics transfer a
patient’s care to the hospital team so they can return to the community to
answer the next call.
At CCH, this is an area we have
been monitoring closely. Improving ambulance offload time is one of the key
goals in CCH’s 2025-26 Quality Improvement Plan. The Emergency Department (ED)
treats approximately 150 patients every day. It is important to ensure everyone
receives the right level of care as quickly and safely as possible while also ensuring
paramedics can get back on the road.
CCH has introduced several
measures to improve ambulance offload time. A clear Standard Operating
Procedure helps staff handle delays consistently. Charge nurses use individual
scorecards to track performance and identify ways to improve. Staff work
closely with paramedics to make handovers smoother, and our data team ensures
accurate reporting so we can monitor trends. The ED team also held a focused
review of the process to find ways to make patient transfers faster, and
signage was added to remind everyone about offload goals. Staff and EMS
partners are regularly updated on best practices to keep patients moving
efficiently through the ED.
The result is that CCH’s average
offload time is now 20 minutes, ranking us 7th best among 76 hospitals in
Ontario. This is a significant improvement from November 2022, when we ranked
16th.
We understand that 20 minutes may
seem like a long time to be offloaded from an ambulance. Rest assured that patients
arriving by ambulance who are in urgent need are not waiting to be offloaded.
Emergencies such as heart attacks, strokes, and traumas are called in to the
hospital by the paramedic team ahead of arrival and are taken directly into
care immediately. Offload time targets usually reflect lower-acuity cases,
where a careful, structured and triaged transition between paramedics and
hospital staff is needed. Every patient is triaged according to the Canadian
Triage and Acuity Scale, ensuring that the sickest patients are treated first,
regardless of how they arrive.
Other recent improvements in the
Emergency Department include much faster admissions to hospital beds, which
went from an average of 15.3 hours in December 2023 to 4.6 hours in November
2024, helping to free up ED space faster.
According to our provincial
reporting data, low and high-acuity patients not admitted to the hospital are
spending an average of 4.3 and 5.1 hours in the ED, while admitted patients
spend 8.2 hours on average, waiting to be transferred to an inpatient bed.
The average wait to see a doctor
is 2.7 hours, slightly above the provincial average of 2 hours but comparable
to larger hospitals in Ottawa, and we’re always working to improve this.
EDs across Ontario are busier
than ever due to several factors, including limited access to family doctors
and clinics, as well as a growing and aging population with more complex health
needs. At CCH, we continue to find innovative ways to improve wait times and
patient flow, while ensuring the ED is fully staffed 24/7 with doctors and
other healthcare professionals. We are grateful for the community’s support and
understanding, and we encourage kindness and respect for our healthcare
workers. If you have concerns about the care you receive, please contact the
hospital directly so we can review and endeavor to resolve the matter.