An Ottawa area pilot project that facilitates electronic consultations between family physicians and specialists has proved so popular among doctors and administrators that its architects are finding ways to make it permanent. These consultations occur before an actual referral to a specialist is considered by the family doctor. “Doing referrals as a family doctor is one …
The goal of the public health system in Canada is to improve the health of communities, whether that is locally, provincially, nationally, and/or globally. Historically, most significant improvements in health occurred in the realm of public health, including preventing infectious diseases and improving water quality. These areas are still vital – we don’t typically worry …
The Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) is a proposed free trade agreement currently being negotiated between Canada and the European Union. The negotiations have mostly been taking place away from the public eye, but since the leak of CETA intellectual property (IP) chapter, it has slowly garnered attention due to the provisions relating to …
A growing number of Canadian doctors are underemployed after finishing their training. There are a number of likely causes, including a lack of infrastructure funding, delayed retirements, and a lack of health human resource planning at the national level. After about two decades of strongly worded public headlines and numerous government reports about doctor shortages, …
Last week, the family that owns Shouldice Hospital announced that it would like to sell its facility to Centric Health, a for-profit company traded on the Toronto Stock Exchange. Shouldice, a facility renowned for its care of patients with hernias, was founded by a surgeon in the 1940s and allowed to continue as a private …
Public health officials must find better ways to communicate with parents about the risks and benefits of childhood vaccination, researchers and public health officials agree. That task is particularly challenging in the absence of a national, or a provincial, vaccine surveillance registry because, to target messages effectively, accurate and timely information about vaccination rates and …
An interesting story came across my desk recently. Apparently, some states in the U.S. have moved towards a punitive model in trying deal with medical errors and adverse outcomes – this particular story describes how Utah will no longer fund healthcare providers and hospitals for dealing with illnesses that resulted from avoidable errors and infections. On …
The re-emergence of vaccine-preventable illnesses is a major concern for Ontario’s public health officials. Efforts to create a national vaccine registry have stalled. A real time, comprehensive vaccine registry and surveillance system in Ontario may be the best answer to the information deficit. Faced with a measles outbreak at an elementary school, nurse Susan Otten spent …
Recently, I had the experience of sitting with a family member who had undergone surgery in a large academic health sciences centre. The staff and the care were excellent. However, I couldn’t help but notice the nearly relentless quest of staff searching for supplies and equipment. Supply carts were everywhere – lined up in hallways, …