In many provinces across Canada the authority and governance of health care has been moved to regional authorities, based on the belief that local authorities can better integrate and coordinate services, and contain costs. Ontario created 14 Local Health Integration Networks (LHINs) in 2006, with the mandate to plan, fund and integrate health care services …
Midwives provide high quality care for normal, low risk pregnancy and child birth, but provide this care to relatively few women in Ontario. The demand for midwifery services is outstripping capacity. The philosophy and actual practice of care provided by midwives and obstetricians is different. Obstetricians deliver many more babies, but obstetrician-led care is more …
Complementary and alternative medicine is a billion dollar business in Canada. Complementary and alternative medicine is rooted in different philosophies and standards of evidence than mainstream medicine. Many patients use both systems of medicine. Complementary and alternative medicine is defined as any medical system, product or practice that is not thought of as a standard …
New drugs are developed every month, and doctors are continuously bombarded with information. Much of this information is provided by pharmaceutical sales representatives who visit doctors’ offices, sponsor lectures and give out medication samples. Are these encounters in the best interest of patients and the health care system? We went out to the street and …
Many politicians, doctors and the public believe that aging of the population is the main cause of increased health care costs. If this is true, this paints an exceptionally worrying picture about the sustainability of health care in the future. However, somewhat surprisingly, the majority of researchers don’t believe that aging plays a major role …
The 2004 Health Accord agreed to a total transfer of $41 billion of federal money to the provinces and territories for health care over a ten year period. This transfer ends in 2014 when the accord expires. The legacy of the Health Accord is mixed. There have been improvements in wait times for some operations …
Polls suggest that health care is the most important issue to Canadians in the upcoming federal election. However, in Canada, health care delivery is largely the responsibility of the provinces and territories. The 2004 Health Accord invested $41 billion of federal dollars in health. What were the outcomes of this federal investment in health? History …
The Centre for Innovation in Complex Care hosted a debate on April 8, 2011 focused on the resolution that “the single most important step in improving hospital quality is having physicians paid and employed by hospitals.” Healthydebate.ca covered this issue on April 6, with a story on How Hospital Doctors Be Paid? At the debate, …
Doctors are a significant portion of the costs for the health care system. In 2009, almost a quarter of Ontario’s health care budget was spent on paying doctors. Most doctors who work in hospitals are not paid by the hospital directly, but by the Ontario Health Insurance Plan, which pays doctors for each procedure and clinical service. …
Patients are increasingly interested in reading the information in their own medical records. Canadian laws and existing technologies support this in principle. However, most patients are not yet easily able to access their medical records in practice. Canadians today have easy access to a range of systems that store their personal information. The difference between …
Genetic profiles are being offered directly to consumers online for relatively reasonable sums of money. These websites are not yet widely known to Canadian consumers. Doctors and the public need to be educated to better understand what the results of these tests mean. E-commerce has exploded over the past decade, and now you can buy …
The Ontario Health Quality council reported in 2010 that wait times for a long-term care bed in Ontario have tripled since 2005. A substantial number of people who are waiting for long-term care – and some who are currently in long-term care – could be cared for at home or in “assisted living” facilities …
Over the past five years, the number of Canadians studying medicine abroad has more than doubled. Almost all of these medical students want to practice in Canada. Is it good for Canada to rely on foreign medical schools to train our future doctors? David Li, a family doctor in Oshawa, is one of Ross University’s …
Blood glucose test strips are the third most expensive cost for the Ontario Public Drug Program. A study released in 2009 suggests that the Ontario government is unnecessarily spending between $19 and $42 million per year on glucose test strips. However, no changes have yet been made to reduce the use of blood glucose test …
Deaths from prescription opioids have increased in Ontario over the past two decades as opioids have become more commonly used to treat pain. The Ontario government has introduced legislation to better monitor opioid prescriptions and to educate doctors and the public about the danger of opioids. The only unusual thing about the death of Heath Ledger, …
Our health and the health of our loved ones is more important to us than almost anything else. We all have stories about how our health care system has provided excellent care, and how it has let us down. Despite the personal and societal importance of health care, it is our belief that many Canadians …
Northumberland Hills Hospital in Cobourg, Ontario was facing a significant deficit. The hospital convened a citizens’ panel to advise the board about which services could be removed from the hospital. The experiment was successful – should it be used by other hospitals? Healthydebate.ca took to the street in December 2010 to gather some opinions about …
Important medical errors in Ontario have occurred in surgical pathology. A report commissioned by the Ontario government recommended an overhaul to the quality management system of surgical pathology. The recommendations for surgical pathology might have implications for other aspects of medicine. Because of public concern about reports of errors in surgery and pathology, the Ontario …
A multi-pronged strategy was needed to significantly reduce smoking rates across Ontario over the last few decades. Obesity is a current and worsening public health threat. The obesity epidemic may also need to be attacked from many angles, but may be harder to effectively fight than smoking. Healthydebate.ca took to the street in December 2010 …