Banff research project shows self-referral clinic popular with patients

Skiers, hikers, and other patients of a Banff sports clinic are often on the road to recovery more quickly due to a fast-tracked self-referral system, concludes a research study funded by RhPAP.

The Banff Sport Medicine Acute Injury Clinic studied the impact self referrals have to speed up diagnoses and treatment for patients with acute injuries. The research was funded by RhPAP’s Rural Research and Quality Improvement Grant Funding Program.

“If you’re on the ski hill on Sunday and you twist your knee and it swells up, you can give us a call Monday morning, and you will be seen that week, most likely,” says Dr. Andy Reed, a sports medicine physician, who practises at the clinic.

The alternative route typically sees a patient go to emergency where it’s suggested they get a brace or they wait to see their family doctor which can take some time, he says. Then, they often wait for an imaging appointment.

“Maybe it was six to eight weeks until they were actually seen in clinic, by which time they had a stiff knee and they hadn’t done any physiotherapy and they hadn’t been given much guidance,” explains Dr. Reed.

“We were hoping to get patients in a little faster, avoid some of these issues, and get them on the right path to recovery.

”The study—Evaluating Patient and Provider Satisfaction with a Self-Referral Healthcare Pathway for Acute Musculoskeletal Injuries—looked at cases over the course of a year beginning in October 2023. It found referral waits were reduced from an average of 30 days to less than 10 days at the clinic, says Julie-Anne Fritz, research and programs coordinator with the Banff Sport Medicine Foundation, which assisted with the study.

Patients mainly come from within the region, however word is spreading.

“I had somebody drive five hours from the Crowsnest Pass, says Dr. Reed.“He injured his knee skiing the day before. He was a ski instructor. He had heard about our clinic, and he came up the next day and was super happy as he ended up seeing a surgeon on the same day, so he got the full service.

”The Banff Sport Medicine has been around for more than 30 years but the Acute Injury Clinic—with the self-referral pathway—wasn’t introduced until 2022.Not only does self referral benefit the patient, but it potentially reduces healthcare costs by dealing with injuries earlier and cutting down on the number of people involved in the referral process.

Dr. Reed and Fritz weren’t surprised by the 96 per cent patient satisfaction rate based on the 118 participants who returned the survey, but they did learn there was room to tweak the clinic process.

“We were hoping that it would be a lot less work for the physicians, potentially, and that was not the case, at least initially,” says Dr. Reed.

“It was largely to do with just the way that we were charting it, and the actual sort of process of how the clinic was flowing. So we’ve definitely made some changes and that’s really helped. We’ve got standardized templates that we fill in for each visit, and that’s certainly helped reduce the workload. As time goes on, you figure out where the inefficiencies are.

”Results of the $10,000 study were shared with the Canadian Orthopaedic Association, Canadian Academy of Sport and Exercise Medicine, and health providers within the Bow Valley region. Plans are also underway to publish the findings in a peer-reviewed journal as well.

Fritz says the clinic appreciated the opportunity to receive funding for the study and unlock the new data.

“The physicians here truly care about being able to implement evidence-based medicine and using that to guide their practice,” she says.Adds Dr. Reed: “This initial study was just really looking at patient satisfaction, but we see [research] as being just a gold mine of data for all kinds of things.”