Grant: Doctoral Research Award: Canada Graduate Scholarships

The pediatric emergency department (ED) is becoming crowded, in part because it is difficult to access care in the community and parents may want support right away when they are worried about their child's health. Crowding is an issue as more crowding is associated with increased waiting times in the ED, poorer continuity of care, and unnecessary tests. Overall, there is a need to address crowding in the pediatric ED - one of the best ways to do this is to focus on the number of individuals who come to the pediatric ED looking for care. Since many of the visits to the pediatric ED are for health concerns that could be managed appropriately by a doctor in the community, it may be possible for these individuals to receive care somewhere other than the pediatric ED. I believe that children with non-emergent healthcare needs could be offered a community healthcare appointment when they come to the pediatric ED - and that this intervention would address parents' concerns about their child's health and would improve how well the pediatric ED operates. In fact, I surveyed over 400 parents who were waiting for care in the pediatric ED who said they would be interested in a community healthcare appointment rather than waiting in the ED. My research will explore how to build a program like this in the province of British Columbia. I will begin by evaluating a similar program that is already operating in Quebec, this will help improve the Quebec program. Then I will take the lessons learned from the evaluation and design a similar program for British Columbia. The final part of my project will determine if this program improves the pediatric ED by simulating - on the computer - how much the wait time (and other measures that tell us how well the pediatric ED is operating) change when the new program is operating. Overall, this research will explore a new intervention that can reduce crowding in pediatric EDs and improve the health of children.