Group items tagged

We found that population aging contributed less than 1% per year to spending on medical, hospital and pharmaceutical care. Moreover, changes in age-specific mortality rates actually reduced hospital expenditure by –0.3% per year. Based on forecasts through 2036, we found that the future effects of population aging on healthcare spending will continue to be small. We therefore conclude that population aging has exerted, and will continue to exert, only modest pressures on medical, hospital and pharmaceutical costs in Canada. As indicated by the specific non-demographic cost drivers computed in our study, the critical determinants of expenditure on healthcare stem from non-demographic factors over which practitioners, policy makers and patients have discretion.

research dating back 30 years illustrates that population aging exerts modest pressure on health system costs in Canada (Denton and Spencer 1983; Barer et al. 1987, 1995; Roos et al. 1987; Marzouk 1991; Evans et al. 2001; McGrail et al. 2001; Denton et al. 2009)

Client-centred Care is “…an approach to the planning, delivery and evaluation of home and community care that is grounded in mutually beneficial partnerships among people using the healthcare system, their family and healthcare providers”

a project titled ‘Client-centred Care: Future Directions for Policy and Practice in Home and Community Care’

literature review of Client-Centred Care in the Home and Community Sector

Stuart N. Soroka, Patrick Fournier 27/09/2011

This report relies on statistical regression analyses of individual survey data to identify the factors that explain Canadians’ attitudes toward healthcare.

Women are more likely than men to consider healthcare important

factors that explain Canadians’ attitudes toward healthcare

four topics: healthcare issue salience (or the prominence of healthcare issues), spending on healthcare, support for private hospitals and support for paying to obtain quicker access

Women are more likely than men to consider healthcare important, to want to augment health spending and to oppose a two-tier system.

Government of Canada Funds Research on Teams to Strengthen Healthcare HAMILTON, ONTARIO--(Marketwired - Feb. 19, 2014) - Health Canada Today, Parliamentary Secretary Eve Adams on behalf of the Honourable Rona Ambrose, Minister of Health, announced $6.5 million in funding to McMaster University for a project to study the use of team-based care as a way to achieve better health outcomes for patients and make the system more cost effective.

The project: "Teams Advancing Patient Experience: Strengthening Quality," (TAPESTRY), will examine how changing the way a primary healthcare team operates and interacts with its patients can improve the quality and efficiency of primary healthcare services. By integrating resources such as community volunteers, eHealth technologies and system navigation, the project will support patient-centred care and stronger connections to community services. The TAPESTRY project is expected to provide valuable information regarding ways to increase access to primary healthcare services. The initiative aims to generate evidence and develop tools to assist provincial and territorial governments in addressing ongoing primary healthcare challenges.

Quick Facts The Government of Canada is one of the largest investors in healthcare research with more than $1 billion invested annually. The Government of Canada has increased health transfers to the provinces and territories to unprecedented levels. This funding will continue to grow, reaching $40 billion by the end of the decade. The need for innovation, both in terms of medical technologies and healthcare delivery systems, is a significant public policy challenge that the Government of Canada is committed to addressing.

National Interprofessional Healthcare Conference 29 - 30 September 2014 | Metro Toronto Convention Centre

Ensuring sustainable primary healthcare across Canada: Embedding interprofessional models and overcoming barriers to collaborative practice. Creating sustainable health care delivery through collaboration. The inaugural National Interprofessional Healthcare Conference will bring together key policy leads and management professionals from primary care networks to discuss strategies to help strengthen interdisciplinary team models.

William Gardner Blog post, July 19, 2015

You might have missed it, but last Friday the Canadian government released the Report of the Advisory Panel on Healthcare Innovation, chaired by Dr. David Naylor. You might have missed it because the government did nothing to publicize the event. Reports from government panels may not be your favorite summer reading, but I strongly urge you to read this one. The background of the report is the panel’s candid assessment of the state of Canadian healthcare: We’re pulling ahead of our OECD peers in what we pay for healthcare, while falling behind in terms of what healthcare providers deliver. What’s new in the report is several good ideas about why our healthcare system is falling behind and what should be done about it. Among these good ideas, the most prominent is that the federal government should create

5/19/2014

As the healthcare industry is transforming and becoming more consumer driven, the “5 Ps” are becoming the hub of the industry: prevention, personalization, prediction, preemption and personal responsibility. As a result, there is a rush of new stakeholders who are entering the game and changing many of the rules. Who are these new breed of companies and what are they bringing to this industry? How are they transforming the way healthcare is practiced?

whereby patients will be able to interact with their doctors via an encrypted two-way video without leaving their home.

This report reviews the state of Canadian public opinion on healthcare, focusing on trends over the past five years. It combines a discussion of public opinion with an analysis of media content on healthcare issues.

reviewing results from all recent and readily available commercial polling on healthcare

content analysis of more than 100,000 articles on healthcare in major Canadian English- and French-language dailies from the past 15 years

From IBM: Healthcare 2015 paints a portrait of what the global healthcare industry could look like a decade from now.

Transformation – the future lifeblood of the healthcare system It is no secret. Healthcare is in crisis – high costs, poor or inconsistent quality, and inaccessibility are potentially catastrophic.

In virtually every country, the growth in healthcare demand is increasing more rapidly than the willingness and, more ominously, the ability to pay for it.

 Healthcare Quarterly, 11(4) 2008: 30-36

Abstract For three days in September 2007, chief executive officers (CEOs) from health systems and organizations across Canada gathered in Banff, Alberta, for the inaugural Healthcare CEO Leadership Summit. We came together to consider and debate two of the most pressing issues facing the transformation of our country's healthcare environment: health human resources (HHR) and public-private partnerships (P3s). (This gathering, from September 14 to 16, was made possible by an unrestricted educational grant from Hoffmann-La Roche Limited. HHR and P3s were selected as topics based on an extensive needs assessment carried out among participants prior to the meeting.)Frank McKenna, the former premier of New Brunswick and former ambassador to the United States, gave the plenary address at the summit. Tom Closson, the past president and CEO of Toronto's University Health Network, delivered a keynote lecture on HHR, while the president and CEO of Hoffman-La Roche Limited, Ronnie Miller, shared his insights on P3s. By listening to presentations from these experts, brainstorming in breakout sessions and openly discussing the topics as a group, summit participants arrived at several conclusions regarding the main challenges and opportunities associated with HHR and P3s. Fundamentally, we all agreed that successfully managing HHR and P3s is critical for healthcare organizations that are focused on serving patients better. In this article, I first set out some of the main elements that characterize Canada's transforming healthcare environment and that largely form the raison d'être for new approaches to HHR and for the emergence of P3s. I then present core findings that emerged from our meeting in Banff and add my views based on my own experience as president and CEO of Kingston General Hospital. Where appropriate, I also briefly present recent innovations that might serve as examples of possible routes forward.

  Healthcare Quarterly, 11(2) 2008: 80-84 Futurethink Healthcare Systems and Organizations: Implications for Health Human Resources* Michael B. Decter

Abstract What will the healthcare system and healthcare organizations look like in the year 2020? What requirements will they have for health human resources? These two questions require both a careful consideration of the general direction of change in health systems and a consideration of the pace of change over the next 15 years. The geographical focus of this article is Ontario, although broader international and Canadian trends are also considered in arriving at answers.This article is organized in five brief sections, beginning with looking backward to look forward and proceeding through key trends, organizational evolution by sector and future health organizations and concluding with 10 implications for health human resources.  

Abstract The World Health Report launched the Health Workforce Decade (2006-2015), with high priority given for countries to develop effective workforce strategies including healthy workplaces for health workers. Evidence shows that healthy workplaces improve recruitment and retention, workers' health and well-being, quality of care and patient safety, organizational performance and societal outcomes. Over the past few years, healthy workplace issues in Canada have been on the agenda of many governments and employers. The purpose of this paper is to provide a progress update, using different data-collection approaches, on knowledge transfer and uptake of research evidence in policy and practice, including the next steps for the healthy workplace agenda in Canada. The objectives of this paper are (1) to summarize the current healthy workplace initiatives that are currently under way in Canada; (2) to synthesize what has been done in reality to determine how far the healthy workplace agenda has progressed from the perspectives of research, policy and practice; and (3) to outline the next steps for moving forward with the healthy workplace agenda to achieve its ultimate objectives. Some of the key questions discussed in this paper are as follows: Has the existing evidence on the benefits of healthy workplaces resulted in policy change? If so, how and to what extent? Have the existing policy initiatives resulted in healthier workplaces for healthcare workers? Are there indications that healthcare workers, particularly at the front line, are experiencing better working conditions? While there has been significant progress in bringing policy changes as a result of research evidence, our synthesis suggests that more work is needed to ensure that existing policy initiatives bring effective changes to the workplace. In this paper, we outline the next steps for research, policy and practice that are required to help the healthy workplace agenda achieve its ultimate objectives. The early decades of the 21st century belong to health human resources (HHR). The World Health Report (World Health Organization [WHO] 2006) launched the Health Workforce Decade (2006-2015), with high priority given for countries to develop effective workforce strategies that include three core elements: improving recruitment, helping the existing workforce to perform better and slowing the rate at which workers leave the health workforce. In this recent report, retaining high-quality healthcare workers is discussed as a major strategic issue for healthcare systems and employers, and improving workplaces as a key strategy for achieving this goal. The workplace can act as either a push or pull factor for HHR. Heavy workloads, excessive overtime, inflexible scheduling, safety hazards, poor management and few opportunities for leadership and professional development are among the push factors that result in poor recruitment and retention of HHR. Evidence shows that healthy workplaces improve recruitment and retention, workers' health and well-being, quality of care and patient safety, organizational performance and societal outcomes. What are healthy workplaces? Based on existing definitions, there is not yet a standardized and comprehensive definition of healthy workplaces. In this paper, we define healthy workplaces as mechanisms, programs, policies, initiatives, actions and practices that are in place to provide the health workforce with physical, mental, psychosocial and organizational conditions that, in return, contribute to improved workers' health and well-being, quality of care and patient safety, organizational performance and societal outcomes (Griffin et al. 2006). Over the past few years, healthy workplace issues in Canada have been on the agenda of many governments and stakeholder organizations. Nationally and internationally, robust evidence has been accumulated on the impact of healthy workplaces on workers' health and well-being, quality of care, patient safety, organizational performance and societal outcomes. This evidence has provided guidance for governments and employers in terms of what should be done to make the workplace healthier for healthcare workers. Across Canada, many initiatives to improve the working conditions for HHR are currently under way, but the continuing concerns suggest that barriers remain. An assessment of the progress to date is necessary in order to inform the next steps for research, policy and practice.

Research Team: Joan Musau, Andrea Baumann This study examines the effects of healthcare-associated infection (HAI) outbreaks on healthcare professionals in a large acute care hospital in Ontario. Daily work has changed for all healthcare professionals because of the emergence of HAI, HAI disease outbreaks and the increased incidence of HAI. The expansion of hospital infrastructure has led to a proliferation of policies, protocols, practices and innovations regarding the prevention and control of infectious diseases.

In June 2014, Canada’s Minister of Health, the Honourable Rona Ambrose, announced the creation of the Advisory Panel on Healthcare Innovation. The mandate of the panel was twofold: Identify the five most promising areas of innovation in Canada and internationally that have the potential to sustainably reduce growth in health spending while leading to improvements in the quality and accessibility of care. Recommend the five ways the federal government could support innovation in the areas identified above. On July 17, 2015, after “thousands of hours of engagement, consultation, research, and deliberation”, the panel delivered its report titled, “Unleashing Innovation: Excellent Healthcare for Canada”.  HealthCareCAN applauded the major recommendations and encouraged all levels of government, all parties and all healthcare stakeholders to embrace the need to spur innovation and act on these recommendations. On August 13, 2015, HealthCareCAN sat down with Dr. David Naylor, Chair of the Advisory Panel on Healthcare Innovation, to discuss the development of the report, its recommendations and highlights. Dr. Naylor provided valuable and thought-provoking insights as you can see and hear in the videos below. Enjoy!

July 21, 2015 (Ottawa, ON) – The four largest pan-Canadian health organizations welcome the overall direction set by the Advisory Panel on Healthcare Innovation’s final report released last Friday, which they believe appropriately emphasizes patient needs. The G4, made up of the Canadian Nurses Association (CNA), the Canadian Medical Association (CMA), the Canadian Pharmacists Association (CPhA) and HealthCareCAN, is unanimous in calling for focused action on innovation in healthcare in order to achieve better quality care as recommended in the panel’s report titled, “Unleashing Innovation: Excellent Healthcare for Canada.” The Advisory Panel recommends the creation of a Healthcare Innovation Fund with the objectives of supporting high-impact initiatives, breaking down barriers to change and accelerating the adoption of promising innovations.

Thursday 9 July 2015

A Greek pharmacist serves a customer. Pharmacists have long been struggling with delays in reimbursements from the state, difficulties sourcing drugs and lack of funds.

“We’re already facing a humanitarian crisis in Greece,” said Sofia Garane who runs the clinic. “Of all the damage done during the last five years, healthcare has been hit the worst.”

Half of patients suffered complications after routine operations carried out by firm for Musgrove Park hospital in Taunton

The Guardian, Thursday 14 August 2014 16.07 BST

Steven Morris

22/03/2016

The Canadian Foundation for Healthcare Improvement applauds the health commitments in Budget 2016. This budget will strengthen Canada’s healthcare system.

New federal funding of $39 million over three years for CFHI is an investment in healthcare innovation that will improve care for patients and the health of Canadians, while providing better value for healthcare spending. This stable funding will ensure that CFHI can continue to identify and spread innovative solutions to pressing healthcare challenges, including providing better care for seniors and Canadians with chronic diseases.