Canada's methods for handling waiting lists for joint replacement surgery are models of social equity but they are being managed unfairly in terms of dealing with the clinical severity of patients' problems, a new study has concluded.
Dr. Karen Kelly and colleagues studied a cohort of 553 knee-replacement patients being treated in the Capital Health Region in Edmonton and found there were no biases in waiting time relating to patients' age, sex, education or work status. However, those needing the procedure most because of pain or other problems received no special treatment and did not get a higher spot in the queue.
“Waiting lists for major joint replacement were managed in a socially equitable fashion and preferential treatment was not given to specific social or economic subgroups,” Kelly reports in the August issue of the Canadian Journal of Surgery. “However, priority was not given to those with more severe symptoms.”
The authors conclude that standardized measures are needed to assess and compare patients' priority on joint-replacement waiting lists based upon the urgency of their condition. — CMAJ