Triage doctors now working in 6 emergency rooms across Alberta

Six emergency rooms across Alberta are getting triage doctors to help quickly assess incoming patients. 25 physicians have been hired, split between the University of Alberta Hospital, the Misericordia, the Grey Nuns Community Hospital in Edmonton, and the South Health Campus, Rocky View General Hospital in Calgary, and the Sturgeon Community Hospital. It really is about assessing quicker and getting to treatment quicker, and therefore you won't have that those number of people who end up waiting for you know. In January, the province announced this program following Prashant Sreekumar's high-profile death at Edmonton's Grey Nuns. The 44-year-old waited nearly eight hours in an emergency room before he died in December. Triage liaison physicians work alongside triage nurses, monitoring patients waiting for care and ordering preliminary tests. So if someone can be cared for better and should be treated for outside of the hospital, they will be able to. Have that touch base point. The triage program was delayed as the province and the Alberta Medical Association sorted out operational details and physician contracts. The Alberta NDP says it won't criticize this program, but it notes it's not enough to solve the wider ER problems. Where are those doctors coming from? Are they going to have the privacy and space to be able to do proper assessments in the emergency room? And are the patients going to feel comfortable? But it is something. It might be a band-aid on a gaping wound. We've put in some robust measurement tools, finding out how many patients they're actually seeing. One ER doctor says while TLPs have worked in the past, he still has significant concerns. Creating that position doesn't create any new beds, and it doesn't create an easier pathway to admitting patients. In a hospital that's over capacity. The province says it will be adding triage doctors to three more locations in the near future. Nicole Healy, CBC News, Edmonton.