A national report card on health care wait times gives Saskatchewan a few As, but also suggests there's plenty of room for improvement in the province.

According to Canada's Wait Time Alliance, which is made up of a number of medical organizations, Saskatchewan gets an A when it comes to waiting times in two categories — radiation treatment for cancer and coronary bypass operations.

However, hip and knee surgeries get a C and D on the report card, respectively. Cataract surgery gets a C rating, compared to B nationwide.

Still, Saskatchewan's efforts to reduce surgical waiting times may pay off in future report cards, says Dr. Chris Simpson, the head of the alliance.

"Change can sometimes take a little bit of time and so investments may be made very wisely but it may take a couple of years for us to see the rewards of that investment," Simpson said.

The report card released Tuesday also says dementia is keeping too many patients in hospital when they should be somewhere else. Frank Molnar, a spokesman for the Canadian Geriatric Society, says patients may go to the emergency room for heart

problems, but end up staying there much longer if they have dementia.

"Because their dementia has worsened in the sense that there's dementia and now delirium, possibly depression and the acute care hospital is really not set up to deal with that constellation of disorders," Molnar said.

Molnar says the solution is to offer better care in the community in order to keep people from going to hospital in the first place.

Meanwhile, Saskatchewan's 2012 record was about the same as last year's.

The report card notes that across Canada, scores have gotten worse in the past year in many other provinces.

The province with the best record was Ontario, which scored As in all five categories.