A new virtual emergency care pilot is set to be rolled out at the Arrow Lakes Hospital in Nakusp.
The Interior Health (IH) initiative aims to aims to keep rural emergency rooms open overnight and ease pressures on local health care workers.
The program will combine on-site nursing staff with virtual physician support to help ensure more consistent ER access and reduce service interruptions by easing pressure on health-care professionals.
Nakusp is one of four communities chosen for the pilot, along with Clearwater, Lillooet and Princeton.
All four hospitals have low overnight patient volumes and have faced staffing shortages that led to several temporary ER closures.
“Nakusp fit what we were looking for to pilot this in,” said Karen Cooper, executive director of clinical operations for the Thompson Cariboo Rural Portfolio.
“It had lower overnight volumes, but because of its remote location it’s still very important that we have overnight emergency access for people who live nearby.”
Cooper said the initiative builds on the existing Virtual Emergency Room Model (VERA) already used in Nakusp on Tuesdays and Thursdays.
“This pilot would allow us to use our own physicians to provide overnight emergency coverage at their home site and then at the other three emergency departments listed in the pilot,” Cooper said.
She said the model would have one physician on virtual duty across all four pilot sites, while local nurses triage and assess patients in person.
“On any given night, one of those sites is going to have an in-person provider, and the other three are going to have that in-person provider provide remote care to their site,” she said.
If a case is deemed serious, a local doctor would be on standby to come in and provide in-person care, avoiding the need to transfer patients to another facility.
Mayor Tom Zeleznik welcomed the initiative, calling it a small but positive step toward improving health-care access.
“We are about two hours away from Nelson, two hours from Trail and three hours from Kelowna, and when you have a patient who needs care, every second counts,” Zeleznik said.
“With this, now there will be a doctor on standby minutes away to come in and help with a serious injury without paramedics taking the patient to another hospital far away,” he said.
He added that Interior Health statistics show only about 1.5 per cent of overnight ER visits are serious enough to require immediate physician attention.
While Zeleznik supports the pilot, he noted it is not a complete solution to the challenges facing rural hospitals.
“It’s a small positive move, but it’s only part of the solution. In our community we have four full-time doctors and we should have six,” he said.
“The team here at the hospital is incredible and they’ve done everything possible to make sure there are no closures, but at times they’ve experienced burnout and just couldn’t help it.”
There is no word yet on when the pilot will officially launch, though Interior Health hopes to have it in place in early 2026.
Cooper said the initiative will be studied carefully to ensure patients are cared for and have their voices heard.
Zeleznik emphasized the need to monitor the program and make improvements based on feedback.
“Once this rolls out, I’d like to know the study of it – the feedback from patients, nurses, doctors – what we can learn from it is the biggest key. And the biggest one, how can we make this even better?” he said.
“Any initiative and collaboration with Interior Health to find solutions is very, very key. Working together and communicating is the secret, and health is number one. Every second counts.”
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