With Winnipeg's ER woes in the spotlight, some ask if tech can help make waiting rooms safer

The death of a patient who'd waited hours to be seen at a Winnipeg emergency department has some people considering whether the province could innovate its way out of its health-care woes.

Chad Christopher Giffin's death in the city's Health Sciences Centre earlier this week has been ruled a critical incident. An investigation is still ongoing, but the hospital says it was over capacity in the hours leading to the man's death.

The incident has rekindled concerns from Manitobans worried about the current state of health care in the province, with some saying it's eroded trust in the system.

Laura Tamblyn Watts, CEO of seniors advocacy group CanAge, said Wednesday the province should be using available technology to make emergency rooms safer.

"You shouldn't have better monitoring waiting for your table at a restaurant that you have waiting for a bed in the ER," Tamblyn Watts told Information Radio host Marcy Markusa.

"Our basic [devices] could be doing a better job than one overstressed, overworked nurse in the corner, trying to manage the patient flow."

Giffin was initially triaged as a low acuity patient, which HSC said are typically reassessed every couple hours though that frequency may be affected by the number of patients in the department.

At least one Canadian hospital has seen some success using wearable technology to constantly monitor people's vitals while they wait to see a doctor.

Some patients at the Dartmouth General Hospital emergency department — Nova Scotia's busiest hospital — are given the devices based on their acuity and whether they're experiencing symptoms like chest pains or difficulty breathing.

"Emergency departments everywhere are facing really large volumes of patients," said Rachel Nalepa, the hospital's interim health services director.

"We really wanted to ensure that patients that are in our waiting room … were not going to face any sort of adverse event. We also wanted to make sure that they felt as though that they were being cared for to kind of lessen that anxiety."

The devices — attached to the patient's finger and wrist — wirelessly transmit a patient's oxygen levels, heart rates, and other vitals to a monitor, alerting staff whenever they go below or above normal range. The results are monitored by dedicated staff. 

Nalepa said reassessments tripled during a six-month pilot at Dartmouth General.

"100 per cent, patient safety is our first priority," she said. "We knew that what this would do is it would only make the waiting room safer."