A Saskatoon software developer has developed a web map of service outages of Saskatchewan Health Authority facilities across the province.
“It’s easier to see the news and digest what’s happening in the province at a glance,” Joel Hill told CBC.
Hill said the internet card transforms information posted on the SHA website regarding service disruptions into a provincial map view.
Hill said the core of his idea was inspired by a local doctor who tweeted a photo of a hand-assembled map using pins.
“It highlighted Saskatchewan’s issues very well, but it was all manual. I thought I could do all of this automatically, and we’ll have constant availability for something like that,” Hill said.
“It will tell you what services are available to you near where you are. It makes you realize that the services you take for granted aren’t necessarily there.”
I have a long list of things I want to add to https://t.co/qzfZpdUfOebut I think I’ll focus on handling user-submitted disturbances first.
SHA data is potentially incomplete and does not paint a complete picture of the state of our healthcare system.
The map will be useful to people in rural Saskatchewan, Hill noted, referring to the example of Biggar’s emergency or acute care departments which have been temporarily reduced since Jan. 9.
The provincial Department of Health and the SHA said in an emailed statement last week that they were aware of emergency departments struggling with staffing shortages as health human resource issues continue to arise. in Canada and around the world. SHA has not yet responded to a request for comment on the web map.
Andrew Will, acting CEO of the SHA, said Thursday that recruiting registered nurses and continuing care aides is an ongoing challenge and that the SHA competes with other regions and provinces.
Will said several factors — retiring healthcare workers, delayed resumption of surgeries and staffing shortages — are leading some regions to experience overcapacity and disruption.
LISTEN | Saskatchewan. software developer aims to plot healthcare disruptions on the map:
Morning Edition – Saskatchewan8:40 amSaskatchewan. software developer aims to put healthcare disruption on the map
Joel Hill has seen many hospital service disruptions reported, but he wanted to map them out so the public could see them at a glance. We learn more about its new website, its limitations, and the additional data it hopes to obtain from the Saskatchewan Health Authority.
Hill said his map would better help Saskatchewan residents understand the strain on the health care system.
“Our province has struggled to manage a pandemic. It was an opportunity for me to do something instead of just complaining about the problem. I wanted to contribute to the solution.
Hill said the pandemic has added to health care disruptions that continue to this day.
“I learned that healthcare disruptions are not reported if they are less than seven days old,” he said. “I was surprised by that.”
He said there was a lack of timely information on service disruptions, with no accessible data on healthcare capacity and statistics on bed availability.
“There’s a lack of quality information. It’s not granular. If you look at the map, there’s a mix of X-ray service outages and ER outages,” Hill said.
Hill said that even if one of them is more important than the other, they are grouped together in the list.
People are already using the map, but Hill said it’s a work in progress and more features will be added in the future.
