Quality Improvement

The MCAS care crisis: Canada can’t afford to look away

MCAS patients and taxpayers deserve better. The solutions exist. What’s missing is the political will to treat this like the crisis it already is.

Emergency department wait times are deadly. They’re also avoidable

Until governments act on our scientific recommendations and commit to meaningful system change, Canadians will continue to wait in dangerous conditions – and more families will face tragic, preventable loss.

The training gap undermining Canada’s primary care teams

While family medicine is exploring how to prepare doctors for team-based primary care, other health professions lack equivalent training requirements.

Was my wife’s hospital care an anomaly or the new normal in Ontario?

I had hoped my wife would get timely and dignified care like I'd received in the past. She did not. Was her care an anomaly or is it the way of the future? I don't know but I sure as hell hope it is not the future.

The MS treatment gap: How costs and outdated policies limit care in Canada

Early, aggressive treatment can significantly improve outcomes for people living with MS. But provinces have yet to implement coverage policies that would ensure patients receive optimal care.

To tackle Ontario’s mental health crisis, we must transform nursing education

By embedding mental health care into the heart of nursing education, we can empower nurses to make a life-changing difference.

When care doesn’t translate

For South Asian communities, improved care means earlier screening, culturally relevant guidance and meaningful language access. Without these changes, we risk continuing a pattern of preventable harm.

Interprofessional education essential in Ontario’s vision for primary care teams

A coordinated, evidence-informed educational plan must accompany the system-wide reform, so that both future and current practitioners can thrive in and lead this change.

Report highlights systemic discrimination against International Medical Graduates in Canada

Canada’s current system for integrating IMGs is inefficient, inequitable and contributes to the physician shortage. By acknowledging these barriers and implementing targeted reforms, Canada can build a fairer, more effective health-care workforce.

‘The first time students see a patient of colour should not be in hospital’: The need for diverse patient actors

Advocate groups say increasing patient actor diversity is crucial to prepare Ontario’s future doctors to care for the province’s increasingly diverse patient population.

Patient Perspectives: Is patient experience finally having its moment?

Will this be the year that patient and caregiver engagement become a real thing? And how do we stay on course? Just ask someone with lived experience.

The importance of health-system navigators

Patients need to know where to turn to for help - and the province must support family doctors and patients in accessing system navigators.

The role of innovation in addressing Canada’s primary care crisis: A response

Rather than dismissing innovative care models, we should evaluate how their successful elements can be integrated into our public system.

The future of prescriptions: Pharmacogenomic testing on the verge of revolutionizing health care

With the growing trend of using genomic information to personalize care, is there a type of testing that can tell us whether medications we have been prescribed are actually working?

Canadian health care’s biggest ailment? Tidy narratives

Canadians are plagued by a reluctance to poke at the complexities of our health care. The public vs. private dichotomy that we have built up in our popular policy discourse is absolute fiction.

Dementia patients deserve more than coloured balls and matching games

If that’s the best we can do, we haven’t learned anything about dignity, respect, and authentic life enrichment

Are Canada’s clinical trials in need of reform? Experts weigh in.

Private companies in Canada are recruiting thousands of often financially desperate test subjects each year to participate in clinical trials. If we want to ensure safer studies for participants and improve critical research, what is the best way forward?

Resident matching can’t start with CaRMS: Why we need a national plan for the health workforce

"Medical residents are a critical part of the health system. Together, we can plan for a future where they and their patients are set up for long-term success."

AI stethoscope demonstrates ‘the power as well as the risk’ of emerging technology

Stethoscopes join the growing number of AI health-care applications promising improved diagnostic performance. But this new technology still comes with certain risks.

May 1 is Doctors’ Day. My thanks go to patients, students and physician colleagues

Doctors’ Day (May 1) is really about all those in medicine working together to make our health-care system better for all. We just need politicians and policy makers to step out of the way.