health care costs

Is activity-based funding for hospitals really a good idea?

Ritika Goel Healthydebate.ca blogger

What do you first think of when you learn that a loved one has been hospitalized? Most of us worry about our loved one getting the best treatment, having appropriate follow-up care and being sent home when they are well. As the person’s family doctor, I may connect with the team in the hospital to

Regulators grapple with Canada’s first generic biologic drug

Biologic drugs have revolutionized treatments for diseases from cancer to multiple sclerosis. But because they’re developed out of living organisms, they’re more expensive than conventional drugs, adding to the strain on publicly funded drug plans. Fortunately, a new shift should make them cheaper. Many biologics will soon have their patents expire. That means Subsequent Entry Biologics (SEB) – which are

Slowing growth in health care spending: temporary blip or permanent gain?

Health care spending

For years, health care spending in Canada (both public and private) grew much faster than the economy. Until very recently, this trend was expected to continue, casting doubt on the sustainability of Canada’s health care system. However, recent data from the Canadian Institute for Health Information shows that growth in health care spending in 2013

Canadian provinces take first steps towards lower drug prices

Pan-Canadian Pharmaceutical Alliance

Prescription drugs provide important benefits to patients, and are an essential component of the health care system. They also have significant costs: Canadians spent roughly $35 billion on drugs in 2013, or about 16% of total health care spending. Drug costs have put significant strain on provincial budgets. In response, most of Canada’s provinces and

The hidden waste in Ontario health care

This month’s provincial budget renews a pledge to eliminate Ontario’s $12.5-billion deficit in the next four years. The commitment ensures that health care, which accounts for almost half of provincial spending, will continue to be under the microscope and the search to make the system more efficient will continue. The challenge is that much of

New technologies and more services are behind rising health costs

Michel Grignon

The tsunami metaphor is more and more often used in commentaries about the effect of aging on health care spending in Canada. It musters up images of devastation and irresistible strength submersing any levees the system might try to mount to oppose it. It is a powerful but misleading metaphor. There is a worrying rise

Should the public know how much doctors are paid?

The United States began releasing the Medicare payments it made to individual doctors on April 9, a move that sparked sensational headlines and debates about privacy. The data offer insights into the $77 billion paid by Medicare’s fee-for-service program to more than 880,000 health care professionals in 2012. Should Canadian provinces follow the U.S.’s lead and publicly

Canadian health care reform a missed opportunity

Livio Di Matteo

Expenditures on public health care in Canada appear to be slowing raising the possibility that the health care cost curve is finally being bent and the system transformed. Numbers from the Canadian Institute for Health Information show that real per capita public sector health spending peaked in 2010 at $2,687 (1997 constant dollars) and is

Addressing obesity epidemic requires a redesigned health care system

Arya Sharma healthydebate.ca blogger

There’s a common catch phrase used by those championing efforts to prevent childhood obesity: “This may be the first generation of kids to not outlive their parents.”  Sounds terrifying – except that so far, there is little evidence to support this idea. Over the past several decades we have seen a remarkable increase in adult

Pulling back the curtain on Canada’s rising C-section rate

Caesarian sections (C-sections) are among the most common surgical procedures performed on women of child-bearing age. Canada’s C-section rate has increased dramatically in the past two decades. The national C-section rate  has increased from 17% of all births in 1995 to nearly 27% in  2010. In Ontario, nearly 29% of births in 2011/12 were by C-section, with a similar rate in Alberta of

Personalized medicine: behind the hype

Gagan Dhaliwal

When the human genome was mapped in the 90s, everybody from scientists to Silicon Valley CEOs believed it would revolutionize medicine by making it personalized. This carried enormous medical and financial opportunities, as well as ethical and legal challenges. But after decades of research, it has become evident that our genome is not nearly as

Our health care system is inefficient. What can we do about it?

Canadian Hospitals

The Canadian health care system is inefficient. It will come to no one’s surprise. Most Canadians agree that we need to improve the efficiency of the health system and get better value from the dollars invested in health care. In fact, all countries struggle with this challenge. We were interested in getting a better understanding

Should HPV vaccination programs be expanded to boys?

Vaccination programs are based on the old adage that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.  Since 2007 Canada has had a vaccination program for the Human Papillomavirus (HPV) administered to girls, although the age of vaccination varies by province:  Grade 5 in Alberta and Grade 8 (with catch up until Grade

Learning to choose wisely

Kieran Quinn

While on call on the internal medicine service at my hospital, I recently admitted a 47-year old woman overnight, who had increased swelling in her ankles and a fluid collection in her abdomen. After taking a thorough clinical history and performing a complete physical examination, I presumed the cause to be alcoholic liver cirrhosis. I

We should compensate living donors for their kidney

Kidney donation

People with end-stage kidney disease have two treatment options: dialysis or transplantation. Dialysis is the process of removing waste and excess water from the blood, by hooking up to a machine that mimics the function of the kidney. Transplantation, however, is the optimal treatment for end-stage kidney disease, because it reduces a patient’s risk of

Demystifying private drug plans

private drug plans

There are many pre-conceived notions about private drug coverage in Canada that are really myths. There are also significant differences between public and private drug plan coverage that result in different coverage decisions.  It is important to understand these myths and differences to better understand the overall Canadian healthcare system. Myth #1 – Public and