Health Infrastructure

1305 articles:
Wait times
Emergency Care
Quality Improvement
Funding
by Kirk Corkery

Practice streams: Efficiency or a trap?

The news from the recently released Canadian Institute for Health Information report on emergency department (ED) congestion is not new. Nor is the news from the survey by the Ontario Medical Association on ED congestion.
by Doug McGregor

We need local solutions to ease hospital overcrowding

Over the past dozen years, every health system in the Western world has moved from struggling with capacity issues to becoming nearly overwhelmed. This is no less true for Canada – and our shifting demographics to a more aged population will exacerbate the capacity issue.
by Gabriel Fabreau Annalee Coakley Lorian Hardcastle

Alberta scapegoating temporary residents in its referendum

We are clinicians and health system researchers. Through both our clinical and academic work, we bear witness to a health system that is under great pressure, with more sick patients and fewer hospital beds and resources to meet their needs.
by Eugene Litvak

How to spend money and make emergency overcrowding worse

Canada's emergency departments (EDs) had no summer reprieve. In July, Global News reported that Montreal EDs were operating above 200 per cent capacity. In British Columbia, CityNews reported eight overnight interruptions at Mission Memorial's ED in two weeks because of physician shortages. By August, 100 Mile House had recorded its 36th ED closure of 2026, with patients directed to a hospital 95 kilometers away.
by Emily Foucault

Beyond pilot projects: Why Canada needs care pathways for chronic inflammatory diseases

At a recent Economic Club of Canada event, Scaling What Works: Advancing Healthcare Excellence Across Canada, two comments stayed with me long after discussion ended.
by Seema Marwaha

Saved from the cancer, undone by the care.

One in three patients over 70 leaves hospital less able to care for themselves than when they arrived. I am an internist. I have taught that number to my trainees. This fall, I watched it happen to my father. Hospital-associated disability is not a rare complication. It is the expected output of how we run acute care.

by Tayyeba Darr

AI is not a shortcut: Canada must fix its health workforce, not bypass it

Canada is facing growing pressure to integrate Artificial Intelligence into its health system – often framed as a solution to physician shortages, long wait times and rising patient demand.
by A group of women in Toronto who have used drugs

‘Protecting’ Ontario or putting lives in danger?

By now, just about everyone has seen or heard Doug Ford’s ad campaign claiming that the current premier seeks to Protect Ontario. It’s crystal clear that Ford’s version of “safety” only applies to a fraction of his constituents.
by Kelly Cobey

It’s time to get mad about your health data

When my mom moved across the province to be closer to her grandkids (and I like to think, me), she faced a challenge many Canadians know all too well: finding a family doctor. But once she did, she faced another problem. It turned out that some of her medical history hadn’t made the trip with her.
by Jennifer Diamond

At a breaking point: Workforce sustainability in home and community care needs smarter HR

The workforce pressure on our increasingly strained health-care system is not a Human Resources (HR) problem; it’s a human problem that affects every single person in the chain of care, from physicians and Personal Support Workers to the administrative teams who hold it all together.
by Margaret Hess Naomi Berlyne

Low-income seniors losing out on government pensions

Many low-income seniors are standing on the edge of a financial precipice. As family physicians and health promoters at St. Michael’s Family Health Team, we do everything we can to support our patients through these challenges. But for every person we help, thousands of others fall through the cracks with no one to catch them.
by Amal Khan

Disconnected by design: How fragmented health data is failing Canadian patients

Patients living in Canadian rural and remote communities often move across multiple systems simply to access basic care. Bill S-5 represents an important first step toward addressing a problem.

by Maha Kamil

Children left waiting: The need to update emergency department triage

Long emergency wait times are now widely recognized as a structural problem. But children should not deteriorate unnoticed in emergency department waiting areas.
by Christen Kong

What if your health-care team included an artist?

Imagine a world where creativity is prescribed alongside medicine – where artists collaborate with doctors to heal body, mind and spirit.
by Jasmine Kaur Sidhu

Art is health infrastructure: Rethinking gender-based violence responses for newcomer women

For newcomer survivors of gender-based domestic violence, expressive arts are not decorative. They are a practical, culturally responsive component of recovery.
by Jay Shah Dawid Martyniak

Rethinking MASLD: Can continuous glucose monitors help?

Metabolic Dysfunction-Associated Steatotic Liver Disease is a rapidly growing public health concern afflicting an estimated 35 per cent of Canadians.

by Maddie O’Connor

Lifestyle medicine vs. wellness culture: Evidence-based preventative care should not be a luxury product

Evidence-based preventative care should not become a luxury product or a marketplace trend. It should remain a core part of accessible public health care.
by Christen Kong

Beyond attachment: The role of community artists in newcomer primary care

Community artists help humanize both health care and settlement experiences by creating accessible, relational entry points.
by Akram Mahani Tom McIntosh Marina Revelli

The U.K. is moving health governance closer to communities. Why is Canada moving further away?

NHS England’s reforms may not be perfect. But they reflect an important recognition: healthier societies are built not only through health-care systems but through stronger neighbourhood systems and focus on communities.

by Emily McCullogh Alix Krahn

Where is the care for coaches in the Safe Sport movement?

Sport is a space that offers opportunities to experience great joy and excitement, as well sorrow and disappointment. More importantly, sport (at all levels) relies on coaches to support athletes throughout this emotional journey. But who supports the coaches?

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