Funding boost effective in growing number of hip, knee surgeries, task force says

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This article was published 15/05/2023 (1240 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The number of hip and knee procedures increased slightly last year in Manitoba, owing in part to new same-day surgery programs and a boost in spending, Health Minister Audrey Gordon said Monday.

Gordon was in Winkler, located about 120 kilometres southwest of Winnipeg, to provide an update on the diagnostic and surgical recovery task force progress on orthopedic surgeries.

The minister said Boundary Trails Health Centre was able to complete 139 more hip and knee replacements in the 2022-23 fiscal year than the 500 procedures initially planned.

The boost in operating volumes was attributed to a program introduced about six months ago that allows patients to recover at home after being discharged the same day as their surgery. About half of the procedures completed at the hospital located between Morden and Winkler were considered “same day.”

“Boundary Trails Health Centre is just one of the several health-care facilities across the province that is completing more hip and knee surgeries as a result of funding,” Gordon said at a news conference outside the hospital.

The province said more than 6,000 people received hip and knee surgery in the 2022-23 fiscal year, including nearly 600 procedures that were funded through the task force and its associated programs.

Task force director David Matear said efforts to increase hip and knee surgery numbers at Manitoba hospitals by providing more money was successful.

Typically, hospitals are given a budget that establishes the number of procedures that can be performed in a fiscal year. The task force let hospitals know they could perform as many procedures as resources would allow, and the difference would be covered through $110 million budget.

Matear said surgical sites achieved their baseline targets and many went above their usual volumes.

“It’s a standard practice for targets to be set to guide how many procedures of any kind can be performed in a particular, certain time frame,” he said. “Targets help inform many factors within the healthcare system, including the timelines within which patients can expect their procedures.”

Matear said 600 more hip and knee surgeries were funded through the task force in 2022-23, including 290 performed outside Manitoba.

Boundary Trails orthopedic surgeon Dr. Hany Asham said the same-day surgical program increased hip and knee volumes by 30 per cent by freeing up in-patient beds.

“Up until six months ago, hip- and knee-replacement surgery was handled as an in-patient procedure,” Asham said, noting he is encouraged to see same-day programs expanded across the province.

“With the great efforts of the task force, with the increasing needs and the wait list, the task force was able to initiate a… potential solution with the introduction of hip and knee surgery to be done as a same day surgery.”

The task force’s wait-list dashboard shows there were 5,060 hip and knee replacements completed in 2022, compared to the 5,049 completed in 2019. Data provided by the task force on its dashboard is current only to the end of February.

The latest available statistics show the pandemic backlog for hip and knee replacements was 791 cases.

Overall, 3,329 people were waiting for a hip or knee replacement for an average of 20 and 32 weeks, respectively, in February. In 2019, there was an average of 1,944 people on the wait list.

According to the province, last year there were 856 hip- and knee-replacement surgeries at Brandon General Hospital; 1,974 at Concordia Hospital; 2,169 at Grace Hospital; 76 at Health Sciences Centre; and 290 at facilities outside of Manitoba.

danielle.dasilva@freepress.mb.ca