Over 100,000 patients are cared for in Alberta and Ontario’s nursing homes every year. Many residents and families are quite happy with the care provided in nursing homes. However, news reports from home and abroad remind us that not all nursing home residents receive the same quality of care. Ontario has launched several quality initiatives for long term …
“They made me feel genuinely cared for. They listened, made eye contact with me, conveyed warmth and understanding in their voice and repeated back to me what I was saying.” — Sophia, about her visit to a chronic pain clinic, from a “care moment” prepared by the Patient Experience department of Alberta Health Services. Mounting …
Bill is an elderly patient living independently at home, who recently fell and was admitted to the hospital where I work (name and minor details changed to protect his identity). Bill clearly indicated his wish to spend as much time at home as possible. For some time we had been measuring our length of stay …
Progress has been made in measuring the quality of Canadian health care. Yet there are still large gaps in what is measured in our health care system, and much of what is measured is only useful to top-level system managers, not to the front-line clinicians whose day-to-day work is so important to the overall quality of the system. This leads experts to question whether measurement is being used effectively to improve the quality of Canadian health care.
The language of health care has had dramatic change – we now commonly use terms like patient centred care, quality outcomes, accountability, and so on in our description of a current or desired state for health care systems and the delivery of care. One discussion I do not hear frequently enough is a discussion of …
Pressure ulcers (bed sores) can cause severe pain and decrease quality of life. They are common among the very ill, the elderly, and immobile or neurologically compromised patients. In Canada, approximately 1 in 8 patients in acute care hospitals, 1 in 11 nursing home residents, and 1 in 50 home care clients experience pressure ulcers. …
Following the public release of Rate My Hospital report last week, I received the following question on twitter: “CBC 5thEstate is being pretty provocative, are hospital CEO’s cringing across the country? Reaction?” Personally, I welcome the public scrutiny, and support actions that increase the transparency and accountability of our health care system. Ontario has been publicly reporting on …
After a decade of focusing on access to health care services, the Ontario government appears to be turning its attention to improving the quality and costs of these services. At the moment, there is considerable variation in how health care is delivered in Ontario’s hospitals, so patients with the same diseases are receiving different qualtiy …
Transitioning my father from our home, to the hospital, and ultimately to long-term care hit us by surprise and we faced many challenges along the way. This is not a post about how to improve the system or a post about the challenges we faced. This is a post about the people who helped us …
Achieving high quality in a health care system, as in any other enterprise, requires that the factors necessary for success be defined, measured, continually monitored and openly reported. The good news is that almost all jurisdictions and professional bodies in Canada are beginning to take the quest for measureable high quality care seriously, albeit with …
Over the last decade, most Canadian provinces have shortened wait times for many surgical procedures, including hip and knee replacement. However, while provinces have poured resources into improving access, they have paid relatively little attention to measuring outcomes of these surgeries. The result, experts believe, is that some patients may be undergoing surgery when it is not …
Ontario’s Health Links initiative is a “big manoeuvre” in a complex provincial system, acknowledges Helen Angus, associate deputy minister with the transformation secretariat of the Ministry of Health and Long Term Care (MOHLTC). The initiative aims to facilitate coordination of care at a local level for high needs patients. It comes in the wake of …
Connie’s story Connie is a Personal Support Worker (PSW) who cares for seniors and people with dementia in their homes. She is a graduate of George Brown College’s PSW program and has been working in home care for the last 10 years. She makes $16 per hour, but rarely gets paid for more than four …
“In Canada in health care we’re at a point where most hospitals accept the role of social media for branding and communication, but only the lead adopters are using it for patient engagement and for clinical use.” – Ann Fuller, public relations director, Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario (CHEO) Call up the website home …
Last week, the governing council of the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario (CPSO) voted unanimously in favor of changing its bylaws to allow for public reporting of the results of inspections of Out-of-Hospital Premises, such as private colonoscopy and plastic surgery clinics. This change was made following reporting by the Toronto Star, which …
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 …
Canadians are proud of Medicare and consistently report being satisfied with the health care services they receive. But, perhaps they should be demanding better. The most recent Health Council of Canada report highlights findings from the 2012 Commonwealth Fund survey of primary care physicians in 10 high income countries. In almost all areas – from …
As physicians, we hope to not only improve quality of life for our patients, but also help them live longer. Colorectal cancer deaths are widely agreed to be up to 90% preventable by regular screening with colonoscopy. A major barrier is getting people to participate in screening programs. Now that awareness is increasing, another limiting …
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 …