Five years ago, researchers in Ontario raised concerns about access and quality in privately owned clinics that performed colonoscopy, suggesting that the quality in these clinics was significantly below the standard of care in public hospitals. Privately owned clinics can be either for-profit or not-for-profit. Medical services provided at these private clinics are paid for …
The Personal Health Navigator is available to all Canadian patients. Questions about your doctor, hospital or how to navigate the health care system can be sent to AskLisa@Sunnybrook.ca The Question: My father has been on a “wait and see” list for 36 hours, with an IV drip. Once they know surgery isn’t going to happen, why …
The Personal Health Navigator is available to all Canadian patients. Questions about your doctor, hospital or how to navigate the health care system can be sent to AskLisa@Sunnybrook.ca The Question: My mother is in hospital. We feel she is not well enough to go home as she cannot get up to go to the bathroom or …
Vigorous patient advocacy over the past 25 years has pushed funding for breast cancer research in Canada to the top of the charts, outstripping the amounts devoted to research into other cancers. It’s a remarkable success story for a type of cancer that, just forty years ago, was spoken of only in hushed tones. But …
About one in four Ontarians visit a walk-in clinic each year. While the government has made access to family doctors a key priority, there is no policy framework for walk-in clinics. Although walk-in clinics have been part of Ontario’s health care landscape for decades, they remain controversial. Walk-in clinics have generally been excluded from government …
A number of Canadian hospitals have started publishing live emergency department wait times online in an effort to provide patients with expectations on how long they will have to wait to be seen for non-urgent issues. These efforts are all innovative pilot projects, but there is little evidence available on whether this information makes any …
The Northern Ontario School of Medicine (NOSM) has developed a model of medical education to address the needs of people living in northern Ontario. NOSM was founded in 2005 with mandate of social accountability to the communities of the region. As the first NOSM graduates begin to enter practice, there are hopes that this school …
In Ontario, specialists are concentrated in larger cities, and Ontarians living in smaller cities and rural regions have challenges accessing specialist services. In Ontario, Local Health Integration Networks (LHINs) use non-financial incentives to try to attract specialists to practice in hospitals that serve rural areas, and provide telemedicine and outreach clinics for patients. In contrast, …
Ontario recently announced funding for two birth centres that will be led by midwives. The government has indicated it is opening birth centres partly to move care out of hospitals and save money. Although birth centres are probably safe and may improve maternity care, it is less clear whether Ontario’s birth centres will indeed reduce …
In the last decade, efforts to improve access to primary care in Ontario have led to major changes to how family doctors practice and are paid. A recent report suggests that these newer models of primary care are not meeting the needs of vulnerable populations, and that Community Health Centres (an older model of care) do …
The Drummond Report recommended no increase in total compensation for Ontario’s doctors. A number of factors affect how much Ontario pays doctors including the number of doctors in practice, how many patients they see, and how much they are paid for each service. Achieving zero growth would require difficult decisions and trade-offs. The February 2012 …
Improving access to primary care has been a key priority of the Ontario Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care for the past decade. The number of Ontarians who have a regular family doctor has increased dramatically. However, patients who are chronically ill continue to have problems accessing primary care. More family doctors and more rostered …
Increasing access to primary care providers, such as family doctors or nurse practitioners, has been a government priority. Better access to primary care is also associated with improved population health. Although the percentage of Ontarians with a regular primary care provider has increased in recent years, fewer than half can see their primary care provider …
In the run up to the Ontario election, the Liberal party has promised $60 million to support physician house calls. The number of doctors who make house calls has declined markedly over the past fifty years, and only a small proportion of Ontario family doctors currently provide ongoing care to patients in their homes. What …
The frequency of obesity has skyrocketed across Canada, and its treatment is a major challenge to the health care system. Bariatric surgery is an effective treatment for obesity that appears to be good value for money. Although Ontario is expanding bariatric surgery capacity, some are concerned that capacity remains below current needs. What is bariatric …
Over the last fifty years, doctors have been making fewer and fewer house calls. There is little doubt that patients value physician house calls, particularly from a doctor with whom they have an ongoing relationship. Lack of appropriate training and mentors, financial disincentives, and the changing culture of family medicine are all barriers to increasing …
An integrated, coordinated system of trauma care has been shown to reduce injury-related deaths by improving timely access to specialized care There is, however, wide variation in how long it takes to get a severely injured patient to a trauma centre in Ontario. Trauma systems improve by systematically assessing performance and outcomes. Ontario does not …
Every year nearly 5,000 Ontarians are injured through trauma and require specialized trauma care, which has been proven to save lives. Many Ontarians think that they can access specialized trauma care at their local emergency department. This is not true. Timely access to specialized trauma care does not always occur in Ontario. Melanie Carter was …
Each year one in five Ontarians visits one of the province’s 163 emergency departments. A recent study has shown that those who present to emergency departments when waiting times are longer have worse outcomes. Since 2008, Ontario has spent a lot of money and effort to reduce waiting times and improve the quality of care …
Colon cancer screening is more effective than breast cancer screening, but uptake in Ontario is still low. Screening more individuals each year would prevent many needless deaths. Nurses can safely and effectively screen patients for colon cancer. Despite this, efforts to increase the number of screening procedures performed by nurses in Ontario are not widespread. …