The leadership of Calgary Health Region (CHR), Canada's largest integrated health care provider, set a strategic goal of reducing the amount of time patients spent waiting in the system. Waiting for appointments. Waiting for tests or treatments. Waiting to be admitted. Waiting for specialty services. After only six months of work, Calgary Health Region achieved the following results:

• The Department of Family Medicine Hospitalist Program team reduced delays in patient transfer time from more than 4 hours to less than 1.5 hours.
• The Adult Emergency Triage team reduced patient average wait times in triage by a factor of four.
• The Cognitive Assessment Clinic reduced waiting time from an average of 55 weeks to less than 22 weeks.