Last month, my wife and I faced a dilemma that is likely familiar to many Canadians: deciding whether to go to the emergency room knowing we would likely wait hours to be seen.
My wife’s musculoskeletal pain was severe but not life-threatening, meaning she would almost certainly be triaged as a lower-priority patient. With several emergency departments nearby, we hoped to identify the one with the shortest wait time. But when we searched online, we discovered only some hospitals published real-time wait estimates, while others provided no information at all.
So we were forced to gamble. We chose to go the closest ER with a known long wait time, rather than go further afield and face a potentially even longer wait.Â
Every day, many Canadians are placed in this same position. For patients with non-life-threatening concerns, wait time is often the single most important piece of information needed to decide whether to go to the ER or which ER to choose when multiple options exist.Â
Faced with incomplete information, patients make high-stakes decisions while flying blind.
This can and should change. The provinces should require emergency departments to publicly report their wait times. Public reporting would help patients minimize delays, reduce frustration and navigate the system more safely during moments of distress.
Public reporting could also notify the public when an ER is temporarily closed — a situation that has unfortunately become more common across Canada.
Transparent reporting would not just benefit patients, but also the system as whole. It could help redistribute the health-care load within a strained system.
Think of how Google Maps directs drivers toward less congested routes, relieving pressure on clogged roadways. The same principle would apply here: non-urgent patients would choose hospitals with lower-wait times, enabling overstretched departments to stabilize.
In Ontario, where I live, a province-wide policy should be feasible. Several major hospital networks, including the University Health Network, William Osler Health System and Hamilton Health Sciences, already report real-time ER wait times.
Others of comparable size, such as Scarborough Health Network and Unity Health Toronto, do not. Yet these hospitals almost certainly already collect the data internally. As a recent report by the Montreal Economic Institute highlighted, hospitals track wait times to generate annual averages.
This suggests the information exists but is not being shared in real time.
This inconsistency between hospitals underscores the need for coordination. Governments, hospitals and professional organizations should collaborate to establish a centralized, standardized reporting system that patients can rely on.Â
Tools such as the ER Watch website already attempt to fill this gap, but they rely on incomplete data. Moreover, these volunteer-run platforms cannot be expected to continuously update their systems whenever hospitals modify their websites or data structures.
A government mandate would nudge the hospitals to take the necessary actions and provide them with a framework for a unified system. It would also ensure wait times are calculated consistently across institutions, making comparisons fair and reliable.
The feasibility of such a system is not hypothetical. British Columbia has already demonstrated that centralized reporting is possible when supported by coordinated leadership. With backing from various regional health authorities, B.C. now provides real-time ER wait-time dashboards across multiple hospital networks.
Recent reports have highlighted the record-long ER wait times many Canadians face and the harms associated with delayed care. Creating a centralized source of ER wait-time information would be a low-cost, high-impact first step.
Canada’s emergency rooms are stretched thin, but transparency is a tool we can implement now. A centralized, real-time reporting system would not solve every problem, but it would help patients make informed choices and relieve pressure on the system when it is most needed.
With the necessary data already being collected, this is an achievable step toward a more responsive, equitable and accountable health-care system.
