Digestive health benchmarks Wait Time Alliance

Wait Time Benchmarks for Digestive Health Care

Procedure	Urgent cases*	Scheduled cases*
Acute gastrointestinal bleeding	Within 24 hours	N/A
Esophageal food bolus or foreign body obstruction	Within 24 hours	N/A
Clinical features of ascending cholangitis	Within 24 hours	N/A
Severe acute pancreatitis (endoscopic retrograde cholangiopancreatography within 72 h, if indicated)	Within 24 hours	N/A
Severe decompensated liver disease	Within 24 hours	N/A
Acute severe hepatitis	Within 24 hours	N/A
High likelihood of cancer based on imaging or physical examination	N/A	Within 2 weeks
Painless obstructive acute jaundice	N/A	Within 2 weeks
Severe and/or rapidly progressive dysphagia or odynophagia	N/A	Within 2 weeks
Clinical features suggestive of active inflammatory bowel disease	N/A	Within 2 weeks
Bright red rectal bleeding	N/A	Within 2 months
Documented iron deficiency anemia	N/A	Within 2 months
One or more positive fecal occult blood tests	N/A	Within 2 months
Chronic viral hepatitis	N/A	Within 2 months
Stable dysphagia (not severe)	N/A	Within 2 months
Poorly controlled reflux/dyspepsia	N/A	Within 2 months
Chronic constipation or chronic diarrhea	N/A	Within 2 months
New onset change in bowel habit	N/A	Within 2 months
Chronic unexplained abdominal pain	N/A	Within 2 months
Confirmation of a diagnosis of celiac disease (antibody test)	N/A	Within 2 months
Chronic gastroesophageal reflux disease for screening endoscopy	N/A	Within 6 months
Screening colonoscopy	N/A	Within 6 months
Persistent (more than 6 months) unexplained abnormal liver enzyme tests	N/A	Within 6 months

* Priority or urgency levels are defined as follows:

Urgent = Situation that is unstable and has the potential to deteriorate quickly and result in an emergency admission;
Scheduled = Situation involving minimal pain, dysfunction or disability (also called “routine” or “elective”).

Note: Unless specified, time refers to calendar days between decision to treat by specialist and the day treatment is received.