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One of the main objectives of the Department of Health for this year is to reduce the lists and waiting times for medical visits, both in Primary Care and in diagnostic tests and surgical interventions. Obtaining an appointment at the CAP in less than 5 days or reducing the waiting lists for surgeries by 10,000 are some of the urgent measures of the Plan for the Improvement of Accessibility of citizens in health care, which will inject 110 million euros into health public of Catalonia.
The Minister of Health, Manel Balcells Díaz, points out that this investment is equivalent to incorporating "300 doctors and 100 nurses" into the system, but what they will do will not be to increase the workforce but to reorganize the organizational processes. For example, reducing the bureaucracy for doctors when processing sick leave or electronic prescriptions, as well as modifying the e-consultation system. According to Balcells, with these actions "we gain time so that professionals can dedicate it to the patient in person" .
The measures want to guarantee that 100% of the people who need it are treated in Primary Care in less than 5 days, which corresponds to 70% of the cases. And the rest are expected to be visited in less than 10 days.
To this end, the plan provides for doctors and nurses to be relieved of administrative tasks, and for the administrative staff to assume these more bureaucratic procedures and communication with patients. For this purpose, the figure of the reference administrator will be created for all citizens, with their own agenda. In fact, 40% of e-consultations to the doctor are for administrative reasons. The Generalitat foresees the inclusion of the 2,000 CAP administrators in the care process in the fourth quarter of 2023.
Another of the objectives is that the calls made to the CAPs are answered on their first attempt in 85% of the cases. Likewise, the telephone responses that are made must be carried out after the first 12 hours in almost all cases. Telephone accessibility to the CAPs will be improved with the deployment of digital switchboards in all the centers in Catalonia and the same-day call and redial management model, which have already begun to be implemented.
Likewise, and to give more time and more quality to the consultation, it will be guaranteed that the health professional has time to carry out proactive tasks that will reduce visits for procedures to the public, such as the renewal of the electronic prescription, the review of diagnostic tests or others.
To reduce waiting lists, Salut foresees 140,000 more visits to specialists, normally in hospital outpatient clinics, compared to 2022, so that those who are outside the established period are reduced by 61,000.
As for diagnostic tests, another 142,000 procedures are expected, an increase of 18%, so that 35,000 people who are outside the maximum period are no longer so.
With regard to waiting lists for surgical interventions, the activity will increase by 10%. This will make it possible to carry out 35,000 more interventions and, in this way, cut the number of people waiting their turn to be operated on by 10,000, 66% of the total.
Currently, the resolution times of oncological surgical intervention are less than or equal to between 45 and 60 days; in cardiac surgery less than or equal to 90 days; and guarantee processes, such as cataracts, hip replacements or knee replacements, have a time period of less than or equal to 180 days. Other reference surgeries have a term of less than or equal to 365 days.
With these figures, oncology and cardiac surgery will all be performed on time and surgery under warranty will have a decrease of 81% in late-term patients and 64% in reference surgery.
