Of our business in our emergency departments, 90% is for non-urgent care. They are visits that could be deferred. It could be a prescription renewal. It could be having access to a nurse to have stitches removed.
By having our CHCs in the community and working closely with the hospitals, we can divert a number of non-urgent cases. Specifically in Essex, in our three CHCs there, we keep open appointments in the morning and the afternoon so that when patients present in the emergency room, if they are CTAS V, which is the least urgent, they are rerouted immediately. They are connected and go over to the CHC for a real-time appointment.
The other benefit of our CHCs is that they have a direct connection to orphaned patients who are discharged from hospitals, those patients who do not have a family physician. There's a strong tie to our CHCs, where they'll accept orphaned patients. They bring them in and assign them to a family physician and a nurse practitioner. That is a very strong element in reducing the impact on emergency departments, which allows for increased flow and better access to acute care.