An E Health scandal? The real E Health scandal is that we don’t have an electronic health system. In an age of Google and 4G smart phones– the health system still functions largely with paper and fax. What we need is a fully integrated complex data system that not only has patient information in it …
Three quarters of our daily salt intake comes from prepared and manufactured foods. Experts suggest that the most effective approach to reducing salt consumption in a population is to more actively regulate the amount of salt in prepared foods. However, there is a debate about the best strategy to curb salt intake in Canada. Does …
This year I did not achieve Elite status on Air Canada/Aeroplan. For the first time in a decade, I am without status on a major airline. No number to call, no priority service, no lounge. I will probably have to wait in line. As you probably know, Aeroplan has Prestige, Elite, and Super Elite levels …
Tomorrow, final year medical students across the country (including myself) will login to the CaRMs website and learn our fates for the next 2-5 years. The ways in which residency positions are assigned were well discussed by healthydebate. The factors that contribute to medical student choice of discipline and location are widely varied and include …
I’m not an expert on health care in Ontario – I still live in Alberta – but from afar the health chapter of the Drummond Report looks good. I think they got the diagnosis right! The health care system isn’t a system, there are inefficiencies, and the system needs to be reoriented. The prescription is …
Salt intake is difficult for individuals to control, because more than three quarter of the salt we consume comes from processed foods, like bread, deli meats and dairy products. Most Canadians are consuming more than double the daily recommended amount of salt. While there is a link between salt consumption and heart disease and stroke, …
“What’s the harm in taking something small? It’s just a pen. It’s only lunch. It was just one weekend at the bed & breakfast with my partner. And I learned about a topic that I wouldn’t have known about otherwise. Plus I got some samples in return! It won’t affect my prescribing habits…” These are …
I became sold on the value of primary care in a way that I wouldn’t have had I not gone through this experience with my sick child… My mindset for years: My pediatrician minimizes my concerns The few times that I had raised concerns with my childrens’ pediatrician, I had been advised that it is …
The Ontario Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care is changing the way it funds hospitals for the upcoming fiscal year, which starts on April 1. The new funding formula is intended to improve efficiency. However, many hospitals are unprepared for the change. We spoke with hospital executives and other experts to better understand what is …
Canada contributed 3.6 billion dollars in assistance to developing countries in 2005-2006. But we and other rich countries practice what has been called by some “foreign aid in reverse”: The recruitment of foreign health professionals from the developing world, a potential obstacle to the deployment of our initiatives in poorer countries. The WHO estimates that …
Shortened hospital lengths of stay, and a growing number of people living with chronic diseases has meant that more Ontarians than ever are receiving health care services in their homes. In 2010, the Ontario Auditor General raised concerns about the quality and value of home care services, some of which remain outstanding. Resolving these issues …
Someone or something needs to control health care, set an agenda, perform long range strategic planning, monitor performance, make corrections, bring in new ideas, and eliminate old ones. That is a tall order in the context of a health care system that is perhaps our most complicated decision making environment; one that has such an …
Recently Ontario Health Minister Deb Matthews made a speech to the Toronto Board of Trade in which she introduced changes to the province’s health care system. Hmmm – interesting choice of audiences. The Ontario government is preparing for an upcoming provincial budget. It is widely expected to contain drastic spending cuts as recommended by economist …
More and more doctors across Canada are using electronic medical records to keep track of their patients’ health information. Finding a patient’s information record in most electronic medical databases involves entering the first few letters of each name, hitting <Enter> and choosing the appropriate person from the resulting drop-down list. Recently while looking up one …
A recent report describes how Canada’s healthcare system performs compared to 13 other countries. Canada ranked at the bottom in access to care and use of electronic health records, and in the middle regarding costs and health outcomes. Thirty-eight percent of Canadians felt the system works well, 51% thought it needs fundamental change, and 10% believed …
Ontario’s Minister of Health and Long Term Care, Deb Matthews, has called them “a bit of a secret in health care”. The Honorable Roy Romanow is a big supporter of them. They are Tommy Douglas’ “Second Stage of Medicare” in action. Are Community Health Centres (CHCs) the best kept secret in health care and, if …
In my last post I explored how stress, debt, and environmental destruction seem like obvious implications of consumption. But what if too-much-stuff is also the source of physical illness? John de Graaf, David Wann, and Thomas Naylor brilliantly address this issue in their book Affluenza: The All Consuming Epidemic in their depiction of consumerism as a …
Design does matter. It matters as much as where something is made – just think about the simple phrase that comes with most Apple products: “Designed in California, Assembled in China.” Recently, 10 nursing regulatory bodies gave away a significant right to the design and quality assurance of Canadian nurses to an American nursing organization. …
There have been a number of recent reports of conflicts of interest in medical research. There are at least two types of conflicts of interest – financial conflicts, where researchers stand to gain financially from their work; and intellectual conflicts, where researchers stand to gain professionally. Ensuring that all conflicts of interest are declared and …
The expected negotiations between the federal and provincial governments on the renewal of the 2004-2014 accord were only starting to attract some attention… until the Harper government’s strategic masterpiece: The unilateral announcement of a multi-year funding framework, combined with a clear message on the respect of provincial/territorial jurisdiction. The pure “per capita” funding model could …