Star-Phoenix from Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada • 12

A12 LOCAL The StarPhoenix Saskatoon, Saskatchewan Friday, February 25, 2005 Access bus in collision Math could aid health services 17" ill 1 Sask. MP issues apology REGINA (CP) Saskatchewan Con-, servative MP Tom Lukiwski says he's sorry he accused Treasury Board President Reg Alcock of giving a former campaign manager a high-paying job at the Canadian Wheat Board. Lukiwski, who is being sued by Alcock for defamation, issued a news release Thursday saying he has no knowledge Alcock was the one who hired Avis Gray. "In the absence of any direct knowledge, it was inappropriate for me to suggest that Mr. Alcock was in any way involved or did anything that was in any way unethical," Lukiwski said in the release.

Alcock, a Winnipeg Liberal MP, has said he didn't even know Gray was being headhunted until after the wheat board hired her. He is the cabinet minister responsible for the board. Alcock filed a defamation lawsuit against Lukiwski last week, in which he alleged accusations made by Lukiwski in a letter-to-the-editor to The Western Producer in December were done "maliciously, callously and intending to harm (his) reputation and image." Alcock's lawyer, Robert Tapper, could not be immediately reached for comment. In the release, Lukiwski also said he would not apologize for raising the issue of what he calls "the increasingly close relationship between the federal civil service and the Liberal Party of Canada." He said that statement was "fair comment" and what opposition MPs are expected to do. iff ir, I Firefighters clean up the scene of a collision between a truck and an Access Transit bus at the intersection of Clarence Avenue and 12th Street East Thursday morning.

A spokesperson for MD Ambulance said no serious injuries were reported at the scene. (SP Photo by Greg Pender) By Janet French of The StarPhoenix It's been used to manage gas stations, airlines, modem telecommunications and supplies for Allied soldiers in the Second World War. Now, the Health Quality Council wants to use a mathematical tool to help Saskatchewan's health-care system manage waiting lists for medical procedures. "It's about helping us figure out how many resources we need to service our population (in) the most efficient way possible so our taxpayers get the best value for money," said Ben Chan, chief executive officer of the Health Quality Council. The council is an independent agency that measures and reports on the quality of health care in the province and promotes improvements.

About 70 managers, doctors, researchers and civil servants from across the province gathered in Saskatoon this week to learn about operations research, a mathematical principle developed in the 1940s to cope with how to best serve customers efficiently. Although it has been used in business management for years, it has been slow to catch on in the health-care sector, Chan said. However, if applied, it could help improve wait list times, Chan said. The Saskatchewan Surgical Care Network reports that between April and September 2004, 23 per cent of all surgeries in the province were done within the first 24 hours after diagnosis, and 46 per cent were done in the first three weeks. Eighteen per cent of patients requiring surgery waited more than six months.

How long Saskatchewan patients wait for medical services compared to the rest of the country isn't clear. One recent report by the Canadian Institute for Health Information (CIHI) said Saskatchewan patients wait an average of 35 days for diagnostic services like an MRI, a CT scan or angiography, compared to the Canadian average of 38 days. However, CIHI doesn't have any meaningful data yet on surgical waiting times. One Fraser Institute report pegged Saskatchewan patients' wait times from first seeing their doctor to obtaining medical services at 33.3 weeks the longest of all the provinces. The provincial government disputes these findings, which are based on doctor-reported numbers and not data from provincial Health Departments.

Right now, managers use their best judgment to allocate health-care resources, such as deciding how many staff to hire, how much equipment to buy, how much space to build and where to locate services, Chan said. "If you think about it, there are hundreds and thousands of combinations of choices that a manager can make," Chan said. "That's what these mathematical tools allow us to do. It allows us to go through all these combinations and say, 'Ah. This is the combination that leads us to the best quality of care, as we define In the United States, for example, the Department of Veterans Affairs has used operations research to decide where to best locate traumatic brain injury treatment units in a way that reduces the average travel time for patients.

The Capital District Health Authority in Halifax used the system to assess the need for hip and knee replacements. The authority found inefficiencies in the system that allowed it to save money, which was re-invested into more hospital beds, Chan said. The Health Quality Council has partnered with the Saskatchewan Cancer Agency to begin analysing how patients diagnosed with cancer move through the health-care system from diagnosis to treatment, first with breast cancer patients, then prostate cancer. In an attempt to convince other services to adopt the system, the council will report back to health-care professionals across the province in April on the how the cancer project is going. The new strategy sounds good to Doug Crookes, who has been told he must wait 39 months for a knee replacement.

"Every time I phone (the Saskatchewan Surgical Care Network) I get a different answer," he said. "It seems to be increasing instead of decreasing." Any new approach to try and trim down wait lists might help, said the 81 -year-old, who uses a cane and a walker to get around while he waits for his new knee. Chan emphasizes operations research isn't a tactic to replace a manager's decision-making judgment. ay more than you came for fl I Sli 3 i NkVMymfrvrMr -YMmmmmnwmmmm feijaSaf'l mil 144 SS6" S'lsHVKfe- Wftt. ti i ii'W 'lW8w4 Atl Lf fis I.

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