Alberta Surgical Group is a physician-led private practice that, under contract with Alberta Health Services, will provide publicly funded orthopedic surgeries – a service desperately needed as waiting lists swell into the thousands in some provinces. “We see that there is a capacity problem — our current system is strained, especially with things like COVID that had hit. And that allows us to help treat our patients and access treatment sooner,” said orthopedic surgeon D’Arcy Durand during Saturday’s opening. “Waiting times are getting out of control – after COVID, they managed to get things back to a manageable level, but this will help more,” he said.

		Read more: Alberta government to fund more private surgery facilities to reduce hospital wait times 		
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			Alberta government to fund more private surgery facilities to reduce hospital wait times

Story continues below ad For the patient, the center will simply be the place where the surgery will take place, Durand said. And because the center is dedicated to surgery, patients won’t have to wait for a bed behind an acutely ill patient, as they would in a hospital, for example. Current trend

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The center itself is a 21,000-square-foot facility with five operating rooms. Officials estimate that up to 8,000 surgeries will be scheduled there each year, ultimately freeing up hospital space. The flow of procedures – both in and out of the operating room – has been streamlined so doctors can be more efficient with the number of patients they see and ultimately reduce waiting times. Orthopedic surgeries have the highest waiting lists in the health system, said provincial health minister Jason Copping. “We have a staffing challenge in the province — we’re working on staffing up,” Copping said. “The beauty of this is that when you focus on just a few processes, you can do them very, very well and use the same staff that do them today.”

		Read more: Canadians agonizingly wait for orthopedic surgery amid record delays: ‘It’s only getting worse’

The center will not only serve the residents of Edmonton, but will also be the primary provider of orthopedic practices in the northern half of the province and the rural areas surrounding the city. It will allow “patients who are waiting longer than what is clinically appropriate in many cases” to access the health care they need, said Carol Anderson, zone chief for the AHS Edmonton Zone. Story continues below ad “The ability to be able to do the types of surgeries that the Alberta Surgical Group will offer here and focus at the AHS facility on those patients who need more extensive and longer hospital stays will be tremendous.” The center has scheduled its first surgery for Wednesday. — With files from Nicole Stillger, Global News © 2022 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.