A collaboration between Hotel-Dieu Grace Healthcare and the Canadian Mental Health Association is getting results for Windsor-Essex residents.
The agencies signed an agreement back in 2014, and laid out a strategic plan last year.
Since then, Hotel-Dieu CEO Janice Kaffer says psychiatry consultation wait times are down from three months to three weeks.
"It used to be that the patient or client would go from organization to organization, referral to referral, sometimes long waits of time," she explains. "And sometimes they would never go to the appointment, they would never fulfill that referral, and circle and circle and circle."
Kaffer says there's more behind the scenes work being done now, so that patients don't have to tell their story to so many different people along the way in order to get proper care.
The agencies are also working to find fixed addresses for homeless people in need of care, because they realize how tough it is for patients to navigate the health care system when they're also worried about finding somewhere to live.