Will Falk – Digital Health Tools Must Remain a Core Part of Canada’s Post-pandemic Health Care Delivery System
Re: Digital Health Tools Must Remain a Core Part of Canada’s Post-pandemic Health Care Delivery System By: Will Falk Date: January 17, 2022 To: Canadian Ministers of Health Paper health care records have been a danger to both patients and providers during the COVID-19 pandemic. I have been able to get my 85-year old mother’s […] Drummond, Sinclair – Fixing Medicare II
From: Don Drummond and Duncan Sinclair To: Canada’s Ministers of Health Date: January 7, 2022 Re: Fixing Medicare II There is a common Canadian misconception that Medicare’s services are free. They are not. Government are simply aggregators of taxes and there is only one taxpayer. Unaware of the cost, nobody, consumer or provider, has any incentive to use or […] Drummond, Sinclair – Fixing Medicare
From: Don Drummond and Duncan Sinclair To: Canada’s Ministers of Health Date: January 6, 2022 Re: Fixing Medicare Medicare, our label for Canada’s cherished health system, is failing. First, the Canada Health Act is misnamed. It is not about health; it’s about publicly funded insurance against some of the cost of treating ill health. Ensuring good health plays a very […] Digital health tools must remain a core part of Canada’s post-pandemic health care delivery system – Hill Times Op-Ed
Paper health care records have been a danger to both patients and providers during the COVID-19 pandemic. I have been able to get my 85-year old mother’s banking and bills online to keep things up to date. I could even do her taxes and basic government functions online. I should have been able to help manage her health care information too. But I couldn’t.
This story of failure became clear to me as our team interviewed over a hundred people for my June 2021 report for Health Canada, The State of Virtual Care in Canada as of Wave Three of the COVID-19 Pandemic: An Early Diagnostique and Policy Recommendations. Two key deficits in our health-care system became evident when social distancing necessitated…
The pandemic isn’t through with us just because we’re through with it – Financial Post Op-Ed
In 2021, nothing was different, but everything changed. The COVID-19 pandemic dragged on. The Omicron variant caused a surge in cases, accompanied by now-familiar restrictions and guidance to limit travel, protect seniors and work from home. The same could have been said this week last year, substituting Delta for Omicron. This time, though, there is not the same hope that vaccination will end the pandemic and begin a new normal, whatever new normal might be.
Lots happened in the past year. Vaccines were approved in late 2020, and mass vaccination gave Canada one of the highest vaccination rates in the world. Proof-of-vaccination certificates were developed and deployed to balance risks to public health against…
Canada Underinvests in Community Care
Canada’s per capita spending on homecare and other outpatient and day program services falls below the international average. In general, countries that direct higher proportions of health spending to seniors care than Canada also spend more per capita on home care, outpatient care and day programs for seniors. Overall, long term care in Canada appears […] Rosalie Wyonch – Prioritize Problems Before Politics to Modernize Seniors Care in Canada
From: Rosalie Wyonch To: Senior Care Policymakers Date: December 15, 2021 Re: Prioritize Problems Before Politics to Modernize Seniors Care in Canada The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted long-existing and well-known challenges in senior care. Post-pandemic, more residential care (LTCs and retirement homes) and homecare will be needed to ensure Canadians can get care appropriate to their needs. But […] Ounce of Prevention is Worth a Pound of Cure: Seniors’ Care After COVID-19
Transformative Change Needed in Senior’s Care Major investments and significant changes should be made in the long-term care sector, according to a new report from the C.D. Howe Institute. Author Rosalie Wyonch recommends expansions in both residential and homecare so Canadian seniors can receive care when they want it, where they want it. The report […] S3 E23: Canada’s Sky High Costs for End of Life Care
If most Canadians want to die at home, why don’t we? Two out of three will die in a hospital and the cost is enormous. Doctors James Downar and Kieran Quinn offer solutions to cut costs and give us the end of life we want. Mahboubi, Irawan – Embracing Population Aging: Staying Young Through Life-Long Learning
To: Canada’s Ministers of Employment From: Parisa Mahboubi and Ivannia Irawan Date: November 3, 2021 Re: Embracing Population Aging: Staying Young Through Life-Long Learning Population aging – accelerated by improvements in life expectancy not least – has been an unpleasant reality for policymakers around the world as working-age populations dwindle and the costs of healthcare […] Quinn, Isenberg, Downar – End of Life: How to Improve Care and Save (Much) Money
From: Kieran Quinn, Sarina Isenberg and James Downar To: Canadians Concerned about Healthcare Costs Date: October 27, 2021 Re: End of Life: How to Improve Care and Save (Much) Money Canadians spend more on end-of-life care than other high-income countries, including the United States, yet we achieve poor results compared to most. There are structural factors and inefficiencies within […] Fourth wave highlights health system’s fragility – The Daily Gleaner Op-Ed
New Brunswick hospitals are on “red alert,” reducing or suspending services to increase capacity for COVID-19 patients as the fourth wave continues. There are 57 patients hospitalized for COVID-19 and 18 in intensive care, at the time of writing – a number that will continue to fluctuate in the days and weeks to come.
New Brunswickers might reasonably ask if the hospital system is truly threatened by fewer than 20 critical cases after 18 months of a global pandemic. Unfortunately, the province-wide red alert shows that it is.
Why and how is this possible? To this, there is no simple answer.
In less than a month, the number of people hospitalized for COVID-19 has nearly doubled, and the number in ICU has…