Thank you, Mr. Chair, and my thanks to the witnesses for being here.
I want to focus, Dr. Sutherland, on ALC or alternate levels of care for patients, especially as we start to get into this aging demographic of all us baby boomers. This will be upon a lot of people for the next 20 or 30 years.
As I understand it, about 14% of hospital beds in Canada are filled with patients who could not be discharged but who require alternate levels of care. According to that research, there are considerable downstream consequences to having high numbers of ALC patients in acute care settings. This includes staff turnovers due to pressure from high hospital rates, reduction in availability for emergency room admissions, facility transfers, and elective surgeries. In addition, ALC patients face risks associated with prolonged hospital stays that result in more than 70,000 avoidable adverse events each year.
I have four questions. I'll give them to you and you can answer as you can. What are the costs to the health care system associated with ALC patients? What are the structural factors in the health care system that have resulted in longer hospital stays for patients no longer requiring acute care services? What role could health funding policies play in addressing this issue? Are there any best practices in Canada or other jurisdictions that reduce the number of ALC patients in acute care settings? If so, can you provide some examples to the committee?