Nova Scotia's virtual health-care service can't keep up with demand

A senior citizen in Nova Scotia is urging the province to expand virtual health care after he spent four days trying to book an appointment through Maple.

"I got into a severe medical problem and do not have a general practitioner. And so I thought, 'Oh, let's use Maple,'" says David Clarke, who lives in Mahone Bay.

Residents who don't have a family doctor and are on the official wait-list for one can sign up for a free service that offers online appointments with a doctor or nurse practitioner. While VirtualCareNS is staffed by health-care practitioners in Nova Scotia, the online service is provided through a private company called Maple.

"I kept trying and trying and trying different times of day for more than 72 hours, and I was in quite severe pain at the time," Clarke says.

He says he tried accessing the website every hour from when the service opened in the morning until after it closed, and each time, he got a message saying the system was closed.

"I finally, just by gosh and by golly, I called on the fourth day. I was dialing all day and I finally got access at 4 o'clock in the afternoon."

No tech issues, says Maple

He says once he got through, it was smooth sailing. Within two hours, he was talking to a doctor located in northern Nova Scotia who provided the care he needed.

But Clarke says the system needs to be improved.

"There's no reason with today's competence and capability of IT to not have a well-designed information service, and access service without the bottleneck," he says. "It's got to expand."

A spokesperson for Maple says there were no glitches or technological issues that prevented access to the service.

Clarke says at one point, he contacted someone from the Maple help desk.

"The person there really understood what the problem was and says, 'Please don't blame Maple. It's not Maple, it's Nova Scotia. They pay us a fee, but they're not expanding. We know they should expand.'"

Recruitment ongoing

Nelson Ventura, the director of innovation at the Nova Scotia Health Innovation Hub, says staff are continually trying to increase the number of doctors and nurse practitioners who provide care through the system.

"We have heard of issues with capacity and wait time and we're really working to expand our resources in the platform."

Ventura says VirtualCareNS is able to handle 250 to 300 virtual visits every day, on average, but there can be up to 150 additional would-be patients who aren't seen because there aren't enough care providers. 

Ventura says aside from recruitment efforts, staff are also seeking to improve the system by making it more efficient, including by collecting more information from patients before their doctor visits so the doctor is better prepared.

VirtualCareNS currently has more than 90 doctors and nurse practitioners providing services to Nova Scotians through the platform.

As of March 1, more than 137,000 Nova Scotians are on the registry for a family doctor — nearly 14 per cent of the province's population.