Patient engagement must become more meaningful
Like most doctors, I can remember the first time one of my patients walked into my office with a stack of printed papers in her hands and a long list of questions—all derived from the newly emerging world of the Internet. Managing these types of interactions could feel daunting and even a little threatening but …
Hype in science: It’s not just the media’s fault
Ground-breaking. Life-saving. Revolutionary. Health journalists like André Picard of The Globe and Mail and Julia Belluz of Vox.com often see such words splashed on press releases about new studies in medicine. “When I see those words,” says Belluz, “my little alarm bells go off.” Journalists have come under fire for sensationalizing health science. But research …
We must create healthy workplaces across the health care sector
Recently, Access Alliance, a community health centre in Toronto, posed an interesting challenge to fellow health care, education, child care and social service organizations: get rid of precarious jobs in the public sector. It makes sense. An important part of the public sector’s role is to build a healthy society. Precarious jobs – temporary, part-time, …
Marijuana: harmless indulgence or health threat?
Among Ontario adults, 14.1 percent used cannabis during 2013, according to a recent report from Toronto’s Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH). In 1997, the equivalent figure was only 9.1 percent. Researchers at CAMH say that the steady increase in cannabis use underscores the need for a public health—rather than a criminal justice—approach to …
Prescription drug coverage: how does Canada compare?
When Jennifer* was laid off, it wasn’t paying the mortgage she was worried about – it was paying her drug bill. The $24,000-a-year cost of Enbrel, used to treat her rheumatoid arthritis, had been covered by her employer. She remembers sitting in the boardroom being told she had been let go, thinking, “I’m going to …
Are sick day policies making us sicker?
This year’s flu season has been particularly nasty. In primary care, this has meant months of waiting rooms teeming with influenza and an array of different viruses. However, relatively few of these patients actually benefit from further assessment and treatment. In many cases, it’s not patients’ health concerns driving them in, but an archaic approach …
Why do I have to wait so long to see a psychiatrist in Canada?
Zero tolerance for workplace violence in health care: a call to action
Imagine doing your job in fear. For many healthcare professionals, this is the reality they face every day. It is no secret; workplace violence is a leading form of occupational injury and results in reduced job satisfaction and fear to perform necessary duties within healthcare. For far too long, violence against healthcare workers has occurred …
Can financial incentives help patients be healthier?
When Egon Jonsson was thinking about how best to support alcohol-addicted pregnant women, he thought of a controversial solution: paying them not to drink. The idea was inspired by studies that have offered shopping vouchers to pregnant women who succeed in giving up cigarettes. But when Jonsson and his team at the Institute of Health …
Is Canada paying too much for generic biological drugs?
In an earlier article, we discussed the importance of post-patent competition in generating social value from the pharmaceutical market. Generic competition gives people access to less expensive drugs and allows society to recapture value from patent holders. This topic is currently relevant because numerous major biopharmaceutical patents, including Remicade, Humira, and Lucentis, are set to …
Canadian biomedical science is outstanding…but also redundant?
In 2003, the sequence of the human genome – our genetic code – was revealed. For the first time, we now had a complete list of human genes (about 20,000), and could realistically start to address what these genes did, how they make us human, how the body works and what happens when things go …
Cy Frank – Canada’s health care system has lost one of its great leaders
Cy Frank died yesterday. For those of you who didn’t know him, he was an orthopedic surgeon, accomplished researcher, tireless advocate for the use of evidence to improve the health care system, and a mentor and role model for many of us. We have lost much intellectually. But what hurts the most is that we …
Canadian hospitals begin to open up visiting hours
Two years ago, Colin’s first son was born at a hospital in a mid-size city in southern Ontario. After a long, difficult labour, his wife and baby were moved to a semi-private room at 5:30am. But Colin was not allowed to join them. “The nurses said I’d have to leave, and come back later in …
Health care must learn to embrace failure
Forty is the new thirty. Orange is the new black. And failure is the new success. It seems these days that no success story is complete without a failure (or two) along the way: the bankruptcy that gave birth to a successful company; the entrepreneur who lost it all just before hitting the Fortune 500. …
Alternative vaccine schedule can be as risky as no vaccines
Hospitals must do more to help late-career docs transition to retirement
Unemployed youth is a worldwide problem. This problem is creeping into medicine and affecting our new doctors too. In recent years, there have been discussions about the lack of physicians in Canada. Much of this has been based on anecdotal and reported evidence of unmet health care needs of Canadians including long waiting lists and …