Alberta Health Services is launching a campaign to direct people to the appropriate place for care in an effort to reduce emergency department visits.
The new public campaign is called Know Your Options and encourages Albertans to do just that.
The campaign is intended to let people know that there are other healthcare options out there besides a trip to the ER.
“In general, people that do access the emergency department, access it for good reason, but I think we wanted to be proactive to inform the public about their choices,” said Dr. Francois Belanger. “We know that there are a number of conditions that could be seen in a family physician’s office and they are seen in the emergency department.”
The Know Your Options website provides a number of care options and explains what each offers:
The provincial campaign is focused on four key groups:
- Minor injuries like sports and rec injuries
- New arrivals to the province
- Parents of small children
- Elderly with chronic disease
“The purpose of this is not to discourage people to come to the emergency department if they need it, it’s to know your options and if you need a prescription refill, well a good option is to go to your family physician. If you have a minor injury or ankle sprain, or something related like that, you can go to urgent care,” said Belanger.
Dr. Belanger says the hope is that people will learn in advance what their options are so if something happens they will know where to go.
“You’re worried about your child and the child may have a fever for the first time or may have an injury for the first time and you don’t know what to do and so if you know in advance where you could bring your child for care under those circumstances then you might go to urgent care as opposed to coming to the emergency department,” said Dr. Belanger.
Victoria has a 10-month-old son and he can’t tell her what he’s feeling so she says she often calls Health Link for advice.
“As a new time mom I call Health Link quite often and they’re really helpful about diagnosing things that are going on,” said Victoria. “Makes it a lot easier to be directed somewhere, you don’t have to do the guessing.”
Dr. Belanger says if you have an emergency you should call 911 and if you are not sure what to do, call Health Link at 1-866-408-5465 and they will direct you.
He says the five emergency departments in the city see about 1000 patients per day.
For more information on the Know Your Options campaign click HERE.
(With files from Karen Owen)
