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 searching for long-term care home for my father and because of the expense involved, she will probably end up selling her house and looking …
Patients languishing on stretchers in hospital hallways, hospitals issuing capacity alerts when they can’t take more patients, tension in emergency departments as patients wait hours and even days to be admitted. That’s too often the reality in our hospitals. And, given the statistics, you’d think that hospital executives—especially in Ontario—would be pushing hard for more …
In my last post, I explained how Canadian provinces are moving toward a model of “catastrophic” drug coverage instead of a pharmacare model more comparable to our “Medicare” system. Depending on the province, public coverage against catastrophic drug costs means that patients must pay between 3% and 10% of their household income before any public …
Defined as someone “having the faculties impaired by alcohol” (or a more practical version: “When you have to hold onto the grass to keep from falling off the earth“), those of us who work in an acute healthcare facility are witness to many illustrious examples of drunk patients coming through our doors. Underaged kids passed out …
At this time of year, most Canadians are stocking up for the holidays. But a surprising number will also be stocking up on prescription drugs. This is not because they believe in doomsday predictions or because they are abusing the health care system. It is because, for a growing number of Canadians, prescription drug coverage only kicks …
Denise Nauss credits the in-home support that she received from a team of health professionals for prolonging the life of her beloved mother, Joyce Mason, by almost two years. Mason, who suffered from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), died in Halifax this past May at age 73. COPD is a long term, progressive lung disease, …
Ontario’s Health and Long-term Care Minister is calling for a change in how health care costs are scrutinized in light of research showing that a tiny proportion of the Ontario population accounts for a very large proportion of health care expenditures. “We need to shift our focus” away from line-by-line scrutiny of hospital, drug and …
If you could design a health care system from the bottom up, odds are that you would create one that would focus on the comprehensive health care needs of all citizens, from disease prevention to chronic disease management to palliative care. Innovation would be rewarded. There would be fewer hospital and long-term care beds and …
Last week, the Ontario Medical Association and the Ontario government announced they had reached a tentative agreement that they hope will end their current dispute. The tentative agreement, which will run until March of 2014, will affect doctors in a number of ways and also has implications for the wider health care system. In this article, …
Generic drugs may seem cheap, at least in comparison to brand name drugs. But Canadians pay more for generic drugs than people who live in many other countries. Last summer, the premiers of several provinces announced that they would attempt to take advantage of competition between generic manufacturers to drive down prices. The generic manufacturers’ …
The number of diagnostic imaging tests performed on Canadian patients has been increasing rapidly in recent years. Although the cost of each test is small, the aggregate costs add up quickly. The costs have become sufficiently large that both doctors and the government have raised questions about whether all the tests that are being performed …
If you came here from another country and opened a newspaper, you might well come to the conclusion that Ontario’s health care system is falling apart. It seems that every day there is a headline about a scandal in one part of the health care system or another. An Auditor General’s report is released criticizing …
Last week, the family that owns Shouldice Hospital announced that it would like to sell its facility to Centric Health, a for-profit company traded on the Toronto Stock Exchange. Shouldice, a facility renowned for its care of patients with hernias, was founded by a surgeon in the 1940s and allowed to continue as a private …
Recently, I had the experience of sitting with a family member who had undergone surgery in a large academic health sciences centre. The staff and the care were excellent. However, I couldn’t help but notice the nearly relentless quest of staff searching for supplies and equipment. Supply carts were everywhere – lined up in hallways, …
My parents (86 years old, married 61 years) have only rarely been separated in the last 20 years. They have dementia and osteoporosis and additional health concerns. Three years ago their problems became acute, Dad was on the verge of burn-out as caregiver and it became clear they couldn’t manage at home any longer. I …
At the recent Council of the Federation meeting, Canadian provinces (except Quebec) announced that they will begin bulk-buying different generic drugs to reduce health care costs. They also flagged the need to both expand and accelerate group pricing on brand name pharmaceuticals. This is a long time coming and a step in the right direction. …
So far this year, I’ve visited my dentist and optometrist once each for routine checkups. As most people know, the Ontario government does not pay for routine dentistry and optometry for most people. Or at least this is what we think. Indirectly, the government shoulders a significant portion of the cost. In other words, most …
One of the big challenges facing modern health care systems is how to reduce delayed discharge from acute hospitals by patients for whom acute care is not longer medically necessary – better known as the problem of bed blockers. Bed blocking occurs when a patient is ready for discharge, but has to stay in hospital …
There have been a number of Canadian reports recently which paint a gloomy picture of the future sustainability of the Canadian health care system. The reports all go something like this: health costs are inexorably rising and caring for a growing elderly population may eventually bankrupt our health care system. We clearly have choices to …
For our health care system to remain sustainable, scarce resources must be managed effectively both at the system level and on the front lines. In health care, decisions by doctors have a major impact on resource management in front-line care. But our health care system does not provide doctors with all of the information they …