Doctor now on call for Health Links

Doctors are joining nurses to answer phone calls for health advice in an effort to reduce congestion in Manitoba emergency rooms.

Earlier this month, a physician started taking calls at Health Links, the nurse-managed telephone program that Manitobans can call for assessment, triage and advice.

Depending on a patient’s clinical needs, nurses may refer callers to their family physician, a walk-in clinic or direct them to an emergency department or urgent care centre.

Now, Health Links has a physician from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. as part of a six-month pilot project to reduce emergency room wait times. Later in December, another clinician will join the service. The plan is to hire a nurse practitioner down the line as well.

“I know many Manitobans have had the experience of calling Health Links, only to be told to go wait for hours in an emergency room,” Health Minister Uzoma Asagwara said in a news release.

“By adding physicians to the service, we’re giving patients direct access to primary care, on the phone and helping to reduce unnecessary referrals to emergency care. It means more peace of mind for patients and less pressure on the health-care system.”

Health Links receives an average of 400 calls per day. Of those calls, an average of 40 patients are triaged to emergency departments, the province said. In the first 10 days of the new physician service, 160 patients were transferred to speak with a doctor and only 10 of those patients were sent to the ER.

By strengthening existing phone and virtual health services, lower-acuity patients can receive the right care when they need it and avoid the emergency room, Asagwara said.

Doctors Manitoba, the advocacy organization representing physicians in the province, said it was informed in advance about the pilot project and supports efforts to connect more Manitobans with doctors in new and innovative ways.

“We believe adding physicians to Health Links has the potential to address one of the biggest criticisms we heard about the existing service, that callers were often just told to go seek in-person care at either an ER or a walk-in clinic,” spokesman Keir Johnson said in an email.

Health Links can be further improved by finding a way to connect callers who need in-person care with same- or next-day appointments at their family doctors’ clinic, or at the many other medical clinics serving patients across the province, Doctors Manitoba said.

Health Links physicians are paid through an alternative funding model rather than a salary or a fee for service, a ministerial spokeswoman said Friday. She said the doctors can work from anywhere in the province.

carol.sanders@freepress.mb.ca