Saskatchewan is accelerating the expansion of a program that puts patients first by helping health care providers spend more time with patients and families and by improving the quality of care patients receive. Twenty-two new sites in 18 hospital wards and four community hospitals, including Weyburn General Hospital, are joining the "Releasing Time to Care" (RTC) program. This marks the beginning of a provincial rollout that will see all medical and surgical wards actively implementing the program by 2012. RTC gives health care staff strategies for improving processes, so they spend less time doing paperwork or searching for supplies and more time on direct patient care. On one nursing unit in England, where RTC originated, it more than doubled the amount of time nurses spent with patients. "This program improves our ability to meet patients' needs and transform their health care experiences," Health Minister Don McMorris said. "It is an excellent example of the personal, efficient, patient-first approach we're working to achieve throughout the entire health care system in Saskatchewan." The Health Quality Council (HQC) is leading implementation of RTC in Saskatchewan as part of its work to accelerate improvement in Saskatchewan's health care system. "Releasing Time to Care empowers staff providing care to make changes that will improve the quality of care for their patients," said Marlene Smadu, HQC chair and associate dean, Southern Saskatchewan Campus for the College of Nursing. "Nurses and other providers want to spend more time with patients. This is the most rewarding part of their work and it is the reason they went into their profession in the first place." Sites around Saskatchewan have been testing the RTC program since the fall of 2008, and have already achieved promising results. Other sites have shown improvements in communication with patients, patient safety and patient satisfaction with care. RTC will be adopted in a variety of areas (including mental health and oncology) and in community hospitals and long-term care facilities. In 2008, the Ministry of Health provided the HQC with $5 million for quality improvement initiatives, including RTC. To date, HQC has distributed $600,000 of this funding to RTC wards in different settings including mental health, community hospitals and long term care.
