Winnipeg is lagging behind the rest of the country when it comes to emergency department wait times, but local health officials point out they are already seeing signs of improvement.

New numbers released by the Canadian Institute for Health Information show Winnipeg, for the fifth consecutive year, has the longest ER waits among provinces and territories which submitted data to the National Ambulatory Care Reporting System.

The data from 2015 and 2016 shows nine out of 10 patients waited a maximum of 5.5 hours in the Winnipeg Regional Health Authority for an initial assessment with an ER doctor. Across the country that number comes in 3.1 hours.

The longest waits were at Concordia Hospital, where nine out of 10 patients waited a maximum of 6.8 hours for an initial assessment with an ER physician.

Victoria Hospital came in at 6.7 hours and St. Boniface at 6.5 hours.

Once admitted, nine out of 10 patients in the WRHA spent 40.3 hours in hospital, compared to 29.3 hours across the rest of the country.

WRHA vice-president and chief nursing officer Lori Lamont said the numbers are disappointing.

“Last year’s report continued to show us that we have lots of room to improve – that there is still much work to be done to improve our wait times in our emergency department,” Lamont aid.

Data released by the WRHA shows improvements since March 2016, but that data isn’t reflected in the latest CIHI numbers.

The WRHA said it has reduced wait times by 8.5 per cent between April and October of this year, it said nine out of 10 patients are now waiting five hours for an initial assessment.

“What we have seen is some of the things that we put in place in the last year are starting to bear fruit, so our performance over the last six months is beginning to show improvement and so we’re really pleased with that,” said Lamont.

Agnita Pal, CIHI’s manager of clinical administrative databases and operations, said Winnipeg’s numbers came from teaching and large hospitals, which skews the data.

“We expect them [The WRHA] to have longer times spent in emergency departments,” said Pal. “They have more volumes of cases and more complex cases.”

Results are based on full data coverage in Alberta and Ontario, partial coverage in British Columbia, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island and Yukon. No data is available for Quebec, New Brunswick, Newfoundland and Labrador, the Northwest Territories and Nunavut.