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Wait Times

Accessibility of health services is a foundational quality metric guiding our work with partners in Alberta’s health care system.

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Hip & Knee Replacement

Below are the provincial wait times for hip and knee replacements that ABJHI recurrently reports on in partnership with the hip and knee clinics and Alberta Health Services.

With joint replacements, we measure two different “waiting” periods:

  1. the wait for the surgeon consult, and
  2. the wait to receive surgery.

These are not passive waiting periods, since treatments and preparation for care are often delivered in this time.

There are several ways to describe waiting times; we use the following:

  • LONGEST 10%: (also called the 90th percentile) captures the point at which 90 percent of people received service. It describes the upper limit of time that one can expect to wait.
  • AVERAGE: mathematical mean; describes the typical wait one can expect.
  • SHORTEST 25%: the point at which the fastest quarter of people received service. This describes the quickest one can expect to wait.

NOTE: The results below include shutdowns and impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic and should not be interpreted to reflect typical wait times and procedure volumes.

Wait for Surgeon Consult

How Can I Reduce My Waiting Time?

You can reduce your wait for a consultation or surgery by selecting the next available surgeon at your referred clinic. This option is available at almost all Hip and Knee clinics in Alberta. To find out if this option is available to you, speak with the care provider who submitted your referral.

Taking the next available surgeon at your referred clinic for your hip or knee problem can reduce your wait by weeks and, in some instances, months. If your schedule is flexible, ask to be put on your care provider’s cancellation list so that when a patient cancels an appointment, you have a chance to fill the slot and reduce your wait time.

Wait for Surgery

Why do wait time numbers differ from what I have seen on other websites?

These results may differ from those published by other organizations (e.g. Alberta Wait Times Reporting on the Alberta Health website). This is because of the data sources and the criteria used in the analysis. We include all elective, primary hip and knee replacements (i.e. non-urgent surgeries performed on a joint for the first time). This information comes from a database on hospital discharges. We group the cases by the month the patient is discharged from hospital.

For example, Alberta Health reporting uses the Alberta Wait List Registry as its main data source. This includes all primary hip and knee replacements (i.e. including surgeries on urgent hospital admissions). This data is grouped by the month when surgery was performed.

This may cause slight differences between reported wait times.

The Osteoarthritis Crisis in Alberta

Learn more about why wait times are so long and what happens while patients are waiting for surgery.

More Info
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