health care system Archives - Page 4 of 5

Long Wait Times Shouldn’t Be The Price We Pay For Universal Health Care

June 5, 2017

For more than two decades, the Fraser Institute has annually surveyed specialist physicians across Canada to estimate how long patients wait for treatment. Our latest survey found that in 2016, overall, patients were waiting 20 weeks between referral from a family doctor to treatment — the longest wait in our survey’s history and 115 per cent longer than in 1993.

While the intervening years have seen increased measurement and acknowledgment of wait times in Canada, they also produced an unhealthy acceptance of the problem — as though wait times are the necessary price for universal health care. Like the anecdote of the frog in the pot of cold water, which is slowly brought to a boil without the frog’s knowledge or immediate discomfort, the slow but fairly consistent annual lengthening of wait times for treatment has made us sometimes forget that our system fails to deliver timely access to care and real people suffer as a result.

We need better value for our health care dollars

June 4, 2017

Health care costs the public sector about $160 billion a year in Canada, a higher per capita cost than most industrialized nations. Yet Canadians are not markedly healthier, nor do we receive better care.

The Commonwealth Fund has ranked Canada 10th out of 11 developed nations for the efficiency of our healthcare system (only the United States was worse). We came at or close to the bottom in access to care, timeliness of care and overall quality of care, and didn’t rank in the top three in any of the metrics reviewed.

Maybe our health care system isn’t as great as we like to think it is. How can Canadian health care move to the front of the pack?

U.S. Falls Behind China & Canada In Advancing Healthcare With A.I.

June 1, 2017

The United States leads the world in artificial intelligence, but lags behind other countries in applying technical innovations to the field of healthcare. Globally, machine learning is used to increase efficiency, lower error rates, and decrease medical costs, but the fragmented marketplace and lack of universal healthcare in America disincentivize adoption of new technology as buyers often prioritize economics over patient care.

Sally Daub, CEO of Enlitic, a frontrunner in providing AI-based healthcare solutions, illuminates why healthcare technology adoption is stunted. “Here the conversation revolves around ‘Who is going to pay for this? What are the economic incentives to use this technology?’ rather than ‘Will this technology result in better outcomes for patients?’,” she explains. Payoff structures may even discourage insurers from footing the bill for early intervention treatments. If insurers don’t approve a new technology, they don’t issue insurance procedure codes necessary for healthcare providers to be reimbursed for services, which means providers won’t adopt the solution either.

Cash-strapped World Health Organization slammed for high travel costs

May 21, 2017

LONDON — Dr. Margaret Chan, director-general of the World Health Organization, traveled to Guinea earlier this month to join the country’s president in celebrating the world’s first Ebola vaccine.

After praising health workers in West Africa for their triumph over the lethal virus, Chan spent the night in the presidential suite at the beach-side Palm Camayenne hotel. The suite, equipped with marble bathrooms and a dining room that seats eight, has an advertised price of 900 euros ($1,008) per night.

Some say such luxurious accommodations send the wrong message to the rest of WHO’s 7,000 staffers — and may hurt the cash-strapped health agency’s fundraising efforts to fight diseases worldwide.

Historically long health-care wait times cost Canadians $1.7 billion last year

May 18, 2017

VANCOUVER—Long waits for surgery and medical treatment cost Canadians $1.7 billion—or $1,759 per patient—in lost wages and time last year, finds a new study released today by the Fraser Institute, an independent, non-partisan Canadian public policy think-tank.

“Long wait times have real consequences for many Canadians who, in addition to experiencing increased pain and suffering, may lose income from not working and may also be unable to fully enjoy time spent with family and friends,” said Bacchus Barua, senior economist in the Fraser Institute’s Centre for Health Policy Studies and co-author of The Private Cost of Public Queues for Medically Necessary Care, 2017.

Time for second opinion on health care

May 17, 2017

The health care debate has flooded the news as Congress attempts to repeal and craft a replacement for the Affordable Care Act — an increase of governmental involvement and regulation albeit considerably less than a single-payer system such as Canada’s. The costs of the law, it seems, have been the impetus for calls to replace it. In fact, enthusiasm for single-payer coverage plummets when people find out the coverage’s costs.

America’s health care system constitutes one-sixth of the nation’s economy. The Affordable Care Act has obvious problems: it is flawed in its conception and basic design, and is failing the American people. The public was not enthusiastic about the Affordable Care Act but got it anyway.

I recently received a letter from a constituent asking two questions: (1) Why is the United States the only advanced, industrialized country in the world without a single-payer health care system; and (2) Why does health care in the United States cost twice as much as that in other countries yet provides lesser results? I will approach these questions the way I do with every issue — with research. Remember, never substitute emotion for scholarship.

Health care system leaves Oshawa man in limbo five months after shoulder injury

May 17, 2017

OSHAWA — Oshawa MPP Jennifer French is highlighting the impact of surgical wait times by sharing the story of an Oshawa man who has been waiting five months and still hasn’t had a needed shoulder surgery scheduled.

With snow and ice on the ground, Steve Border went down after taking a bad step off a deck on Dec. 19.

“I landed on my elbow and immediately felt something in my shoulder,” he explains.

The next day he attended an urgent care clinic in Oshawa. He was sent for an X-ray and ultra sound in short order, although the X-ray found no broken bones, the ultrasound showed damage and he was referred for an MRI for which he waited a month.

Less than 20 per cent of Health Canada staff received mandatory ethics training

May 16, 2017

Fewer than 20 per cent of employees at Canada’s health and public works departments received mandatory training on ethics, values and conflict of interest between 2013 and 2016, a report from Canada’s auditor general, Michael Ferguson, has found.

The audit on fraud risk management published Tuesday examined both Health Canada and Public Services and Procurement Canada, along with the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, Indigenous and Northern Affairs Canada (INAC) and Global Affairs Canada (GAC). It examined how well the five organizations were equipped to deal with the risk of fraud between April 1, 2013 and October 21, 2016.

It’s not just Americans who need to worry about health-care costs: Pape

May 12, 2017

Last week, I spent four days in hospital for a surgical procedure (don’t worry, nothing life-threatening). When I was discharged, I was presented with a bill for $1,055. That covered semi-private accommodation (the hospital had no facilities that qualified as “wards”) and some recommended post-op massage therapy. None of the expenses were covered by OHIP.

I have a family member who suffers from a rare and debilitating disease. His specialists have prescribed a very rare drug, which costs about $3,000 a month. It is not covered by OHIP.

A friend of mine has a very serious eye condition. He requires monthly shots just to maintain the limited vision he has left, at a cost of $1,500. Since he is under age 65, he has to pay for these out of his own pocket. OHIP doesn’t cover it.

U.S. Health Care Has A Pretty Sweeping Definition Of ‘Pre-Existing Condition’

May 8, 2017

Yesterday in the U.S., the Republicans passed a vote in the House to repeal and replace the the Affordable Care Act (ACA) for the American Health Care Act (AHCA).

Though the bill still has to be passed into law (and there’s some doubt about that happening), it has plenty of Americans worried about their health care coverage — more, in fact, than might be assumed upon first glance.

According to Money magazine, under the AHCA, insurance companies will be able to charge people with pre-existing conditions more for their health insurance, an act currently banned by the ACA.