Skip to main content

Home/ CUPE Health Care/ Group items tagged statistics

Rss Feed Group items tagged

Filter: All | Bookmarks | Topics Simple Middle
Heather Farrow

Health Statistics | - 0 views

www.hilltimes.com/...52631

statistics

shared by Heather Farrow on 11 May 16 - No Cached
  • Monday, March 7, 2016
  • A Check-Up on Canada’s Health:
  • Total Fertility rate (average number of children per woman)    1.61 Infant mortality rate (per 1,000 live births)         4.8 Current smokers       18.1%
  • ...5 more annotations...
  • Has a doctor   85.1% Heavy drinkers          17.9% High blood pressure 17.7% Overweight or obese adults 54.0% Overweight or obese youth (12-17)          23.1% Physically active (leisure time)       53.7%
  • In 2014, roughly 3.4 million Canadians aged 12 and older (11.2 per cent) reported that they did not receive health care when they felt they needed it. Overall, females (12.4 per cent) were more likely than males (10 per cent) to have reported an unmet health-care need. Among age groups, unmet health-care needs were lowest for those aged 12 to 19 and those aged 65 or older, and were highest for those aged 20 to 54. Source: Health Canada
  • Top 10 Causes of Death in Canada (2012) Ischaemic heart disease       13.8% Alzheimer’s and other dementias   9.5% Trachea, bronchus, lung cancers     8.1% Stroke             5.4% Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease     4.5% Colon and rectum cancers   3.7% Diabetes mellitus      2.7% Lower respiratory infections           2.3%
  • Breast cancer             2.2% Falls    1.9% Source: World Health Organization International Comparison of Health Spending  Canada           OECD Average           Canada’s OECD Ranking Total Health expenditure as a percentage of GDP            10.2    8.9       10/34 Total Health expenditure per capita           $4,351            $3,453            10/34
  • Public expenditure on health per capita   $3,074            $2,535            13/34 Public share of total health expenditure   70.60%          72.70%          22/34 Hospital expenditure per capita     $1,338            $1,316            15/29 Physician expenditure per capita   $720   $421   27-Apr Drug Expenditure per capita          $761   $517   2/31 Source: OECD Health Statistics 2015           
Irene Jansen

Senate Social Affairs Committee review of the health accord- Evidence - March 10, 2011 - 0 views

www.parl.gc.ca/...22evb-e.htm

accord senate

shared by Irene Jansen on 23 Jan 12 - No Cached
  • Dr. Jack Kitts, Chair, Health Council of Canada
  • In 2008, we released a progress report on all the commitments in the 2003 Accord on Health Care Renewal, and the 10-year plan to strengthen health care. We found much to celebrate and much that fell short of what could and should have been achieved. This spring, three years later, we will be releasing a follow-up report on five of the health accord commitments.
  • We have made progress on wait times because governments set targets and provided the funding to tackle them. Buoyed by success in the initial five priority areas, governments have moved to address other wait times now. For example, in response to the Patients First review, the Saskatchewan government has promised that by 2014, no patient will wait longer than three months for any surgery. Wait times are a good example that progress can be made and sustained when health care leaders develop an action plan and stick with it.
  • ...97 more annotations...
  • Canada has catching up to do compared to other OECD countries. Canadians have difficulty accessing primary care, particularly after hours and on weekends, and are more likely to use emergency rooms.
  • only 32 per cent of Canadians had access to more than one primary health care provider
  • In Peterborough, Ontario, for example, a region-wide shift to team-based care dropped emergency department visits by 15,000 patients annually and gave 17,000 more access to primary health care.
  • We believe that jurisdictions are now turning the corner on primary health care
  • Sustained federal funding and strong jurisdictional direction will be critical to ensuring that we can accelerate the update of electronic health records across the country.
  • The creation of a national pharmaceutical strategy was a critical part of the 10-year plan. In 2011, today, unfortunately, progress is slow.
  • Your committee has produced landmark reports on the importance of determinants of health and whole-of- government approaches. Likewise, the Health Council of Canada recently issued a report on taking a whole-of- government approach to health promotion.
  • there have also been improvements on our capacity to collect, interpret and use health information
  • Leading up to the next review, governments need to focus on health human resources planning, expanding and integrating home care, improved public reporting, and a continued focus on quality across the entire system.
  • John Wright, President and CEO, Canadian Institute for Health Information
  • While much of the progress since the 10-year plan has been generated by individual jurisdictions, real progress lies in having all governments work together in the interest of all Canadians.
  • the Canada Health Act
  • Since 2008, rather than repeat annual reporting on the whole, the Health Council has delved into specific topic areas under the 2003 accord and the 10-year plan to provide a more thorough analysis and reporting.
  • We have looked at issues around pharmaceuticals, primary health care and wait times. Currently, we are looking at the issues around home care.
  • John Abbott, Chief Executive Officer, Health Council of Canada
  • I have been a practicing physician for 23 years and a CEO for 10 years, and I would say, probably since 2005, people have been starting to get their heads around the fact that this is not sustainable and it is not good quality.
  • Much of the data you hear today is probably 18 months to two years old. It is aggregate data and it is looking at high levels. We need to get down to the health service provider level.
  • The strength of our ability to report is on the data that CIHI and Stats Canada has available, what the research community has completed and what the provinces, territories and Health Canada can provide to us.
  • We have a very good working relationship with the jurisdictions, and that has improved over time.
  • One of the strengths in the country is that at the provincial level we are seeing these quality councils taking on significant roles in their jurisdictions.
  • As I indicated in my remarks, dispute avoidance activity occurs all the time. That is the daily activity of the Canada Health Act division. We are constantly in communication with provinces and territories on issues that come to our attention. They may be raised by the province or territory, they may be raised in the form of a letter to the minister and they may be raised through the media. There are all kinds of occasions where issues come to our attention. As per our normal practice, that leads to a quite extensive interaction with the province or territory concerned. The dispute avoidance part is basically our daily work. There has never actually been a formal panel convened that has led to a report.
  • each year in the Canada Health Act annual report, is a report on deductions that have been made from the Canada Health Transfer payments to provinces in respect of the conditions, particularly those conditions related to extra billing and user fees set out in the act. That is an ongoing activity.
  • Senator Eaton
  • How many government programs have been created as a result of the accord?
  • The other data set is on bypass surgery that is collected differently in Quebec. We have made great strides collectively, including Quebec, in developing the databases, but it takes longer because of the nature and the way in which they administer their systems.
  • I am a director of the foundation of St. Michael's Hospital in Toronto
  • Not everyone needs to have a family doctor; they need access to a family health team.
  • With all the family doctors we have now after a 47-per-cent-increase in medical school enrolment, we just need to change the way we do it.
  • The family doctors in our hospital feel like second-class citizens, and they should not. Unfortunately, although 25 years ago the family doctor was everything to everybody, today family doctors are being pushed into more of a triage role, and they are losing their ability.
  • The problem is that the family doctor is doing everything for everybody, and probably most of their work is on the social end as opposed to diagnostics.
  • At a time when all our emergency departments are facing 15,000 increases annually, Peterborough has gone down 15,000, so people can learn from that experience.
  • The family health care team should have strong family physicians who are focused on diagnosing, treating and controlling chronic disease. They should not have to deal with promotion, prevention and diet. Other health providers should provide all of that care and family doctors should get back to focus.
  • I have to be able to reach my doctor by phone.
  • They are busy doing all of the other things that, in my mind, can be done well by a team.
  • That is right.
  • if we are to move the yardsticks on improvement, sustainability and quality, we need that alignment right from the federal government to the provincial government to the front line providers and to the health service providers to say, "We will do this."
  • We want to share best practices.
  • it is not likely to happen without strong direction from above
  • Excellent Care for All Act
  • quality plans
  • with actual strategies, investments, tactics, targets and outcomes around a number of things
  • Canadian Hospital Reporting Project
  • by March of next year we hope to make it public
  • performance, outcomes, quality and financials
  • With respect to physicians, it is a different story
  • We do not collect data on outcomes associated with treatments.
  • which may not always be the most cost effective and have the better outcome.
  • We are looking at developing quality indicators that are not old data so that we can turn the results around within a month.
  • Substantive change in how we deliver health care will only be realized to its full extent when we are able to measure the cost and outcome at the individual patient and the individual physician levels.
  • In the absence of that, medicine remains very much an art.
  • there has been progress. In some cases, there has been much more than in others.
  • There are different types of benchmarks. For example, there is an evidence-based benchmark, which is a research of the academic literature where evidence prevails and a benchmark is established.
  • The provinces and territories reported on that in December 2005. They could not find one for MRIs or CT scans. Another type of benchmark coming from the medical community might be a consensus-based benchmark.
  • universal screening
  • A year and a half later, we did an evaluation based on the data. Increased costs were $400 per patient — $1 million in my hospital. There was no reduction in outbreaks and no measurable effect.
  • For the vast majority of quality benchmarks, we do not have the evidence.
  • A thorough research of the literature simply found that there are no evidence-based benchmarks for CT scans, MRIs or PET scans.
  • We have to be careful when we start implementing best practices because if they are not based on evidence and outcomes, we might do more harm than good.
  • The evidence is pretty clear for the high acuity; however, for the lower acuity, I do not think we know what a reasonable wait time is
  • If you are told by an orthopaedic surgeon that there is a 99.5 per cent chance that that lump is not cancer, and the only way you will know for sure is through an MRI, how long will you wait for that?
  • Senator Cordy: Private diagnostic imaging clinics are springing up across all provinces; and public reaction is favourable. The public in Nova Scotia have accepted that if you want an MRI the next day, they will have to pay $500 at a private clinic. It was part of the accord, but it seems to be the area where we are veering into two-tiered health care.
  • colorectal screening
  • the next time they do the statistics, there will be a tremendous improvement, because there is a federal-provincial cancer care and front-line provider
  • adverse drug effects
  • over-prescribing
  • There are no drugs without a risk, but the benefits far outweigh the risks in most cases.
  • catastrophic drug coverage
  • a patchwork across the country
  • with respect to wait times
  • Having coordinated care for those people, those with chronic conditions and co-morbidity, is essential.
  • The interesting thing about Saskatchewan is that, on a three-year trending basis, it is showing positive improvement in each of the areas. It would be fair to say that Saskatchewan was a bit behind some of the other jurisdictions around 2004, but the trending data — and this will come out later this month — shows Saskatchewan making strides in all the areas.
  • In terms of the accord itself, the additional funds that were part of the accord for wait-times reduction were welcomed by all jurisdictions and resulted in improvements in wait times, certainly within the five areas that were identified as well as in other surgical areas.
  • We are working with the First Nations, Statistics Canada, and others to see what we can do in the future about identifiers.
  • Have we made progress?
  • I do not think we have the data to accurately answer the question. We can talk about proxies for data and proxies for outcome: Is it high on the government's agenda? Is it a directive? Is there alignment between the provincial government and the local health service providers? Is it a priority? Is it an act of legislation? The best way to answer, in my opinion, is that because of the accord, a lot of attention and focus has been put on trying to achieve it, or at least understanding that we need to achieve it. A lot of building blocks are being put in place. I cannot tell you exactly, but I can give you snippets of where it is happening. The Excellent Care For All Act in Ontario is the ultimate building block. The notion is that everyone, from the federal, to the provincial government, to the health service providers and to the CMA has rallied around a better health system. We are not far from giving you hard data which will show that we have moved yardsticks and that the quality is improving. For the most part, hundreds of thousands more Canadians have had at least one of the big five procedures since the accord. I cannot tell you if the outcomes were all good. However, volumes are up. Over the last six years, everybody has rallied around a focal point.
  • The transfer money is a huge sum. The provinces and territories are using the funds to roll out their programs and as they best see fit. To what extent are the provinces and territories accountable to not just the federal government but also Canadians in terms of how effectively they are using that money? In the accord, is there an opportunity to strengthen the accountability piece so that we can ensure that the progress is clear?
  • In health care, the good news is that you do not have to incent people to do anything. I do not know of any professionals more competitive than doctors or executives more competitive than executives of hospitals. Give us the data on how we are performing; make sure it is accurate, reliable, and reflective, and we will move mountains to jump over the next guy.
  • There have been tremendous developments in data collection. The accord played a key role in that, around wait times and other forms of data such as historic, home care, long term care and drug data that are comparable across the country. Without question, there are gaps. It is CIHI's job to fill in those gaps as resources permit.
  • The Health Council of Canada will give you the data as we get it from the service providers. There are many building blocks right now and not a lot of substance.
  • send him or her to the States
  • Are you including in the data the percentage of people who are getting their work done elsewhere and paying for it?
  • When we started to collect wait time data years back, we looked at the possibility of getting that number. It is difficult to do that in a survey sampling the population. It is, in fact, quite rare that that happens.
  • Do we have a leader in charge of this health accord? Do we have a business plan that is reviewed quarterly and weekly so that we are sure that the things we want worked on are being worked on? Is somebody in charge of the coordination of it in a proper fashion?
  • Dr. Kitts: We are without a leader.
  • Mr. Abbott: Governments came together and laid out a plan. That was good. Then they identified having a pharmaceutical strategy or a series of commitments to move forward. The system was working together. When the ministers and governments are joined, progress is made. When that starts to dissipate for whatever reason, then we are 14 individual organization systems, moving at our own pace.
  • You need a business plan to get there. I do not know how you do it any other way. You can have ideas, visions and things in place but how do you get there? You need somebody to manage it. Dr. Kitts: I think you have hit the nail on the head.
  • The Chair: If we had one company, we would not have needed an accord. However, we have 14 companies.
  • There was an objective of ensuring that 50 per cent of Canadians have 24/7 access to multidisciplinary teams by 2010. Dr. Kitts, in your submission in 2009, you talked about it being at 32 per cent.
  • there has been a tremendous focus for Ontario on creating family health teams, which are multidisciplinary primary health care teams. I believe that is the case in the other jurisdictions.
  • The primary health care teams, family health care teams, and inter-professional practice are all essentially talking about the same thing. We are seeing a lot of progress. Canadian Health Services Research Foundation is doing a lot of work in this area to help the various systems to embrace it and move forward.
  • The question then came up about whether 50 per cent of the population is the appropriate target
  • If you see, for instance, what the Ontario government promotes in terms of needing access, they give quite a comprehensive list of points of entry for service. Therefore, in terms of actual service, we are seeing that points of service have increased.
  • The key thing is how to get alignment from this accord in the jurisdictions, the agencies, the frontline health service providers and the docs. If you get that alignment, amazing things will happen. Right now, every one of those key stakeholders can opt out. They should not be allowed to opt out.
  • the national pharmaceutical strategy
  • in your presentation to us today, Dr. Kitts, you said it has stalled. I have read that costing was done and a few minor things have been achieved, but really nothing is coming forward.
  • The pharmacists' role in health care was good. Procurement and tendering are all good. However, I am not sure if it will positively impact the person on the front line who is paying for their drugs.
  • The national pharmaceutical strategy had identified costing around drugs and generics as an issue they wanted to tackle. Subsequently, Ontario tackled it and then other provinces followed suit. The question to ask is: Knowing that was an issue up front, why would not they, could not they, should not they have acted together sooner? That was the promise of the national pharmaceutical strategy, or NPS. I would say it was an opportunity lost, but I do not think it is lost forever.
  • Irene Jansen on 23 Jan 12
     
    CIHI Health Canada Statistics Canada
Irene Jansen

Nursing home residents at risk: W5 investigation reveals startling national statistics - 2 views

www.ctvnews.ca/...-national-statistics-1.1149215

investigation ltc violence staffing extendicare

shared by Irene Jansen on 22 Feb 13 - No Cached
  • A ground-breaking W5 investigation into resident-on-resident abuse in long-term care homes has found that these attacks are far more common than ever thought: more than 10,000 “incidents” across Canada in one year.
  • The data was obtained after W5 filed access to information requests about resident-on-resident attacks with 38 provincial and regional health authorities. Hundreds of documents came back, detailing everything from pushing and slapping to extreme violence
  • in case after case reviewed by W5, the most that had been done was to require homes in violation of the act to submit a “plan of correction
  • ...7 more annotations...
  • whether or not the home had failed to provide that “safe environment” was not an issue for police to investigate. “That is the exclusive jurisdiction of the Ministry of Health. They oversee long term care homes, not the police.”
  • Statistics obtained by W5 reveal that there were more than 10,000 resident-on-resident incidents reported at long term care homes across Canada in one year.
  • The reports were taken to the University of Toronto’s Institute for Life Course and Aging for analysis. “I can say in Canada we’ve never had a study on abuse in any institution, let alone on resident-to-resident,” said Lynn McDonald, the director of the Institute. “In fact, when CTV came to me I thought ‘Oh, my goodness; this is the most data I’ve ever seen on this particular issue.’
  • Staff at long term care homes and advocates for seniors believe a major contributing factor is the ratio of staff to residents. Despite claims from many homes that the average day-time ratio is one staff for every eight patients, personal care workers interviewed for this story claim that ratio is rarely met.
  • “You could be one PSW [personal support worker] on a floor of 25, and if two residents start going at it, what do you do?“ said Miranda Ferrier, President of the Ontario Personal Support Workers’ Association.
  • Extendicare has promised to do better in the future and has drafted a voluntary plan of action
  • Theresa doesn’t blame Frank’s attacker, or the staff. She blames Extendicare and has taken her story to the street, picketing in front of Extendicare’s Lakeside Long Term Care Facility
Heather Farrow

Shameful Neglect | Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives - 0 views

www.policyalternatives.ca/...shameful-neglect

shared by Heather Farrow on 27 May 16 - No Cached
  • Heather Farrow on 27 May 16
     
    This report calculates child poverty rates in Canada, and includes the rates on reserves and in territories-something never before examined. The report also disaggregates the statistics and identifies
  • Heather Farrow on 27 May 16
     
    This report calculates child poverty rates in Canada, and includes the rates on reserves and in territories-something never before examined. The report also disaggregates the statistics and identifies
Irene Jansen

Health Indicators CIHI June 8 2011 - 0 views

secure.cihi.ca/...productFamily.htm

statistics canada fromdelicious

shared by Irene Jansen on 23 Jan 12 - No Cached
  • Irene Jansen on 23 Jan 12
     
    Health Indicators 2011 is the 12th in a series of annual reports containing the most recently available health indicators data from the Canadian Institute for Health Information and Statistics Canada. In addition to presenting the latest indicator data, t
Irene Jansen

OECD Health Data 2011 June - 0 views

www.oecd.org/...7_12968734_1_1_1_37407,00.html

statistics international comparisons fromdelicious

shared by Irene Jansen on 23 Jan 12 - No Cached
  • Irene Jansen on 23 Jan 12
     
    OECD Health Data 2011, released on 30 June 2011, offers the most comprehensive source of comparable statistics on health and health systems across OECD countries. It is an essential tool for health researchers and policy advisors in governments, the priva
Irene Jansen

Health Statistics Data Users Conference 2011 September Ottawa Statistics Canada - 0 views

www.statcan.gc.ca/...index-eng.htm

conference statistics fromdelicious

shared by Irene Jansen on 23 Jan 12 - No Cached
  • Irene Jansen on 23 Jan 12
     
    September 22-23, 2011 Ottawa Convention Centre, Ottawa, Ontario The Health Data Users Conference 2011 will showcase the breadth and depth of health data available to researchers, planners, academics and decision-makers. It will also provide excellent opp
Irene Jansen

Socio-economic Conference 2011 Statistics Canada Hull Sept 26 and 27 2011 - 0 views

www.statcan.gc.ca/...index-eng.htm

conference health policy canada fromdelicious

shared by Irene Jansen on 23 Jan 12 - No Cached
  • Irene Jansen on 23 Jan 12
     
    As is usual for all federal departments during a federal election campaign, all conferences, deputy speaking engagements, and advisory committee meetings are not being held by Statistics Canada at this time. As a result, the Spring 2011 Socio-Economic C
Govind Rao

Canada's ERs missing mark on waiting times, new statistics reveal - The Globe and Mail - 0 views

www.theglobeandmail.com/...article16866187

from heather waits emerg hospital

shared by Govind Rao on 14 Feb 14 - No Cached
  • KELLY GRANT - HEALTH REPORTER The Globe and Mail Published Thursday, Feb. 13 2014
  • One in 10 Canadians who arrive at an emergency room sick enough to be admitted wait more than 27 hours for a bed, according to fresh data that reveal hospitals are missing by a wide margin a new target set by the country’s emergency physicians.
  • Statistics on emergency-room use from the Canadian Institute for Health Information released on Thursday show that 90 per cent of patients who need to be admitted are checked into a bed in 27.9 hours or less – more than twice the 12-hour target the Canadian Association of Emergency Physicians suggested when it called for national standards last fall.
Govind Rao

Statistical Reports - CNO - 0 views

www.cno.org/...statistical-reports

from heather nursing Ontario

shared by Govind Rao on 23 Apr 15 - No Cached
  • This page contains statistical reports related to the College's nurse membership, applicants for registration and registration exam pass rates.
Govind Rao

Targeted ads to be shown at health-care facilities - Infomart - 0 views

www.fpinfomart.ca/...214732519

from heather health and safety hospital

shared by Govind Rao on 18 Feb 15 - No Cached
  • The Globe and Mail Wed Feb 18 2015
  • People turning to their phones to kill time in waiting rooms at health-care facilities may soon see an unexpected image: a person in blue scrubs, with dark purple bruises on her arm. It is one of the ads in a targeted mobile campaign launching Wednesday, designed to raise awareness about the pervasive problem of abuse against health care workers. It is using new advertising technology - targeting people with mobile ads based on the GPS location of their phones - to get the message out.
  • The campaign, launched by Ontario's Public Services Health & Safety Association (PSH&SA), will show ads to people in more than 100,000 health-care facilities in the province, including hospitals and rehabilitation centres. Ads will appear in mobile apps people use to play games, read the news, or map their routes home, for example, as long as those people have agreed to allow those apps to gather information about their whereabouts. "The issue of violence against health-care workers is growing," said Henrietta Van hulle, executive director of the PSH&SA, a non-profit funded by the Ministry of Labour.
  • ...5 more annotations...
  • The campaign is the beginning of a multiyear process to push for better tools to protect these workers. That will include more awareness among families of patients, who need to inform doctors and nurses if the patient has certain triggers or warning signs of a violent outburst. It could also involve tools such as personal alarms workers can wear to call for help when a situation arises. More generally, it also means informing workers of their rights, and encouraging workplaces to do better risk assessments and even flag patients who may become violent. For people working in home care, who do not have security nearby, risk assessment is even more important.
  • Last year, 639 health-care workers in Ontario were injured in a violent incident, badly enough that they were unable to work their next shift. That statistic does not account for incidents where workers are pushed, hit, or scratched, for example, and do not report them or take time away from work. "They're seeing [these incidents] as part of the job," Ms. Van hulle said. According to a decade-old Statistics Canada study, 33.8 per cent of nurses surveyed in hospitals and long-term care facilities reported being physically assaulted by a patient in the past 12 months. Nearly half reported emotional abuse on the job. More recent national statistics are hard to come by, but industry associations and unions say the problem is growing.
  • This is due to a couple of factors. First, there has been a move to deinstitutionalize people with mental health issues. While it is seen as positive to put fewer people with mental-health issues into institutions, protections for workers dealing with these patients have not kept pace with the changes. Another major issue is Canada's aging population, and rising cases of dementia. Although not everyone with dementia is violent, people who are cognitively impaired can easily become frightened and lash out, Ms. Van hulle explained. The campaign uses technology that identifies health-care facilities in Ontario - and through "geofencing," can serve ads to mobile devices inside those facilities.
  • "When someone is in a hospital and they see a message targeting people in a hospital, the context makes it relevant," said David Katz, executive vice-president of EQ Works, the digital media buying company for the campaign. This kind of technology is attractive to advertisers because the more relevant an ad is, the less likely a person is to ignore it - known as "banner blindness" for digital ads.
  • The trouble is that locationbased ads can seem creepy. Because this is dealing with a serious issue - and not selling something - it is less likely to trigger that reaction, said Robert Wise, partner at Scratch Marketing, PSH&SA's ad agency. The campaign will not involve storing information about people it targets. "We're targeting generically, people who are visiting facilities," Mr. Wise said.
Cheryl Stadnichuk

Canada's sluggish track record on health inequality must be addressed, say experts &#82... - 0 views

ipolitics.ca/...-must-be-addressed-say-experts

inequality canada

shared by Cheryl Stadnichuk on 04 Apr 16 - No Cached
  • Cheryl Stadnichuk on 04 Apr 16
     
    Health inequality in Canada is growing. And nowhere is that more evident than in the health gap between indigenous and non-indigenous Canadians. In a report released last November the Canadian Institute for Health Information concluded that Canada wasn't likely to see any major improvements in health inequality without addressing the social determinants of health. "A big part of that isn't our health care system, it's that we don't have the kind of equal society, we don't have the social safety net that many European countries for example do. And that reflects in statistics," said Dr. Ryan Meili, a family doctor from Saskatoon and a former provincial NDP leadership candidate.
  • Cheryl Stadnichuk on 04 Apr 16
     
    Health inequality in Canada is growing. And nowhere is that more evident than in the health gap between indigenous and non-indigenous Canadians. In a report released last November the Canadian Institute for Health Information concluded that Canada wasn't likely to see any major improvements in health inequality without addressing the social determinants of health. "A big part of that isn't our health care system, it's that we don't have the kind of equal society, we don't have the social safety net that many European countries for example do. And that reflects in statistics," said Dr. Ryan Meili, a family doctor from Saskatoon and a former provincial NDP leadership candidate.
Irene Jansen

Hospitals to publish statistics on superbugs (New Brunswick Telegraph-Journal ) - 0 views

www.evernote.com/...1f7591cad3c6af3b417444cbef313a

NB HAI reporting

shared by Irene Jansen on 20 Mar 13 - No Cached
  • Statistics on infectious diseases in hospitals - including fast-spreading superbugs - will be published on Horizon Health Network's website as of May 1.
  • New Brunswick hospitals have been under pressure to publish the number of people suffering from ailments from so-called superbugs that are resistant to antibiotic treatment following a recent incident at the Dr. Georges-L-Dumont University Hospital in Moncton.
  • "no answer at this time" when asked if Vitalité would begin publicly reporting the number of cases of C. difficile or other superbugs.
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • Many hospitals in other provinces publish their infection rates on their websites, and in Ontario it's required by law.
  • the accepted Canadian standard.
Irene Jansen

Comparative Performance of Private and Public Healthcare Systems in Low- and Middle-Inc... - 1 views

www.plosmedicine.org/...10.1371%2Fjournal.pmed.1001244

privatization quality costs excellent

shared by Irene Jansen on 31 Mar 13 - No Cached
  • Studies evaluated in this systematic review do not support the claim that the private sector is usually more efficient, accountable, or medically effective than the public sector
  • Irene Jansen on 31 Mar 13
     
    Summary by Anna Marriott, Oxfam Access and responsiveness * Studies that measured utilization by income levels tended to find the private sector predominately serves the more affluent. In Colombo, Sri Lanka, where a universal public health service exists, the private sector provided 72% of childhood immunisations for the wealthiest, but only 3% for the poorest. * Waiting times are consistently reported to be shorter in private facilities and a number of studies found better hospitality, cleanliness and courtesy and availability of staff in the private sector. Quality * Available studies find diagnostic accuracy, adherence to medical management standards and prescription practices are worse in the private sector. * Prescribing subtherapeutic doses, failure to provide oral rehydration salts, and prescribing of unnecessary antibiotics were more likely in the private sector, although there were exceptions. * Higher rates of potentially unnecessary procedures, particularly C-sections, were reported at private facilities. In South Africa for example, 62% of women delivering in the private sector had C-sections, compared with 18% in the public sector. * Two country studies found a lack of drug availability and service provision at public facilities, while surveys of patients' perceptions on care quality in the public and private sector provided mixed results. Patient outcomes * Public sector provision was associated with higher rates of treatment success for tuberculosis and HIV as well as vaccination. In South Korea for example, TB treatment success rates were 52% in private and 80% in public clinics. Similar figures were found for HIV treatment in Botswana. Accountability, transparency and regulation * While national statistics collected from public sector clinics vary considerably in quality, private healthcare systems tended to lack published data on outcomes altogether. Public-private partnerships also lacked data. * Several reports ob
Doug Allan

Improving quality in Canada's nursing homes requires "more staff, more training" - Heal... - 3 views

healthydebate.ca/...uires-more-staff-more-training

LTC staffing

shared by Doug Allan on 20 Jun 13 - No Cached
  • According to data from Statistics Canada, staffing levels in Ontario’s nursing homes have historically been below the national average (behind only British Columbia for the lowest staffing levels in the country).
  • While Ontario legislation requires there to be a nurse on duty at all times in nursing homes, Ontario has not legislated a minimum staffing ratio – the ratio between the number of nursing home staff (nurses and non-nurses) compared to the number of patients they care for.
  • Statistics Canada data shows the average staffing ratio in Ontario nursing homes was 4 hours per resident day in 2010 (the last year for which data is available). This was 25% less than in Alberta, where nursing homes averaged 5.3 hours per resident day. (This is only a measure of the hours paid to all staff in nursing homes, not of the actual time care staff spend providing care ‘at the bedside.’)
  • ...9 more annotations...
  • Staffing levels in nursing homes are a concern not only because they are low, but they may not be increasing fast enough to meet the rising medical complexity of patients in nursing homes.
  • Data from the Canadian Institute for Health Information shows that between 2008 and 2012, the proportion of residents in Canadian nursing homes with disease diagnoses increased for every category of disease.
  • Dementia is also increasingly common among Canadian nursing home residents, with over three quarters of residents having some level of cognitive impairment. More than one in four residents suffers from severe dementia.
  • As a result, the care needs of nursing home residents have grown. In Ontario, care needs are assessed using the Method for Assigning Priority Levels (MAPLe) scoring system. The system ranges from a score of 1 (low needs) to 5 (very high needs). In 2012, 85% of new admissions from the community and 78% of admissions from hospital were in the High or Very High (MAPLe 4 and 5) clinical needs categories. Less than 1% of admissions were in the low and mild (MAPLe 1 and 2) clinical needs categories. Projections from the Ontario Long Term Care Association suggest that soon virtually all patients admitted to nursing homes will be from the two highest need categories.
  • The increasing needs of nursing home residents in Ontario has been driven in large part by the shift from letting individual nursing homes choose their residents, to having Community Care Access Centres determine who is in greatest need of long term care, says Dr Samir Sinha, lead for Ontario’s Senior Strategy
  • Ontario has begun to increase both the number and skill sets of nursing home staff, while also trying to find efficiencies to free up more staff time for direct patient care.
  • “One of the most promising initiatives to date has been Behavioral Supports Ontario (BSO),” says Sinha. The BSO initiative is province-wide, and has funded the hiring of 604 new staff (194 nurses, 272 PSWs, and 138 other health care professionals, such as social workers) with specialized skills in caring for and supporting residents with complex and challenging behaviors, such as violence.
  • Researchers and policy strategists in Alberta believe another key to improving quality in nursing homes is to engage Health Care Aides (HCA in Alberta is the rough equivalent of a PSW) as full members of the care team.
  • Carole Estabrooks, a Professor of Nursing at the University of Alberta has been researching the engagement of HCAs in quality improvement for the last several years. She believes that too often, HCAs are not treated as members of the care team. “Care Aides typically have the least amount of formal training, and as a result doctors, nurses and others too often assume they have nothing to offer,” she says. Frequently, this means they have little input into the care plans they are expected to carry out.
Irene Jansen

Home care for seniors falls largely on friends, family - Health - CBC News - 2 views

www.cbc.ca/...home-care-seniors.html

home care caregivers volunteers

shared by Irene Jansen on 20 Dec 12 - No Cached
  • More than half of Canadians aged 65 and older who received home care in 2009 said they relied on family, friends and neighbours for the support, according to Statistics Canada.
  • close to 180,000 seniors who said they had at least one unmet need for professional home-care services
  • The findings were comparable to the last time Statistics Canada looked at unmet needs for home care in 2005
  • ...1 more annotation...
  • unmet needs for assistance are associated with higher risk for injuries, having depression, falls and institutionalization.
Cheryl Stadnichuk

One in five Toronto-area workers has mental health issue, while job insecurity is makin... - 0 views

news.nationalpost.com/...urity-is-making-it-worse-study

mental health precarity

shared by Cheryl Stadnichuk on 18 Apr 16 - No Cached
  • A report from CivicAction released Monday found that nearly 21 per cent of the labour force in the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Arrea (GTHA) is living with a current mental health issue. Roughly 31 per cent of the workforce, according to the report, has experienced a mental health issue in the past.
  • CivicAction will likely cite statistics contained in the report as the organization begins a campaign Monday to motivate employers and employees to tackle mental health issues in the workplace. Eight per cent of the GTHA workforce will experience a substance use disorder in 2016, the report found; about 10 per cent will experience anxiety, a figure the authors predict will grow by 27 per cent over the next 30 years. Beyond the bullet-point statistics, though, the report paints a picture of stressed workers lacking adequate support.
  • The report also lists the high cost of childcare in the GTHA as a risk factor for mental health issues. (The Canadian Center for Policy Alternatives says that Toronto’s childcare costs are  the highest in the country.) “It’s not surprising at all,” said Lyndsay Macdonald, co-ordinator for the Association of Early Childhood Educators Ontario, referring to stress created by high fees. “It’s because we rely on a market-based approach to childcare, and that means high fees for parents.”
  • ...1 more annotation...
  • CivicAction also lists income inequality and job insecurity as contributing factors for mental health issues. Wayne Lewchuk, a professor at McMaster University who has studied precarious labour extensively, said its strain goes beyond a worker’s schedule and employment status. “You’re less likely to have friends at work because you’re moving from workplace to workplace,” Lewchuk said. “Your support system is weaker.”
Irene Jansen

Armine Yalnizyan. Changes to immigration policy could transform society - The Globe and... - 0 views

www.theglobeandmail.com/...article2420367

migrant workers regulation wages federal

shared by Irene Jansen on 03 May 12 - No Cached
  • The number of temporary foreign workers has more than doubled since 2006.
  • Disturbingly, the federal announcement also set out new wage rules that permit employers to pay temporary foreign workers up to 15 per cent below the average paid for that type of work locally
  • Fifteen per cent below the average is a recipe for continuous decline when labour shortages are filled, as a matter of policy, by those who get paid less and are not allowed to stay long enough to ask for more.
  • ...3 more annotations...
  • Those numbers will soon rise. Last week, the federal government announced that employers could usher in highly skilled temporary workers such as engineers and electricians in 10 days instead of the current 12- to 14-week approval process, noting red tape will likely be reduced in processing other categories of temporary foreign workers as well. Of note, the fastest growing category of temporary foreign workers is low-skilled workers, whose numbers have grown ten-fold in just five years. These are not the seasonal fruit-and-vegetable pickers on which our nation also relies. These folks toil year-round at Tim Hortons, Canadian Tire, in our abattoirs, nursing homes, and hotels; workplaces where employers say they can’t find Canadian workers willing to work at the offered wages.
  • four-year cap on residency for temporary foreign workers, brought into play in 2011
  • In Alberta, by the end of 2011, more than 58,000 people were working under temporary foreign work permits, up from about 37,000 at the end of 2007. The province can only nominate up to 5,000 of these workers to become Canadians. The vast majority of low-skilled temporary foreign workers have no avenue for permanent residency.
Irene Jansen

Baseball Forbids Pay for Performance - A Lesson for Healthcare? | Open Medicine - 0 views

blog.openmedicine.ca/333

shared by Irene Jansen on 15 May 12 - No Cached
  • Baseball pays huge attention to statistical performance indicators, but shies away from target-based payment. Health care basically ignores tonnes of statistical evidence but many are rushing headlong towards target-based payment.
  • health care and health are way too complex to make it work as well as it might in baseball. The link between what providers do and patient outcomes is not nearly so linear and immediately tangible as the relationship between a team’s on-base-plus-slugging average and the number of runs scored. Moreover, you can’t pay for performance unless the indicators are unambiguous and simple to measure. It’s easy to measure whether you’ve done Pap tests or ordered mammograms. It’s hard to measure whether you’ve helped a frail elderly person with four chronic conditions avoid complications over a ten-year period. That’s why P4P typically pays for the former and has no clue about how to reward the latter.
  • The result? Health care frequently pays extra for achieving targets that require no special skill or effort, and have little impact on the health of really sick patients.
Irene Jansen

Should You Run from that Medical Test? Interview with Alan Cassels. The Tyee - 0 views

thetyee.ca/...Alan-Cassels-Interview

diagnostics overtreatment

shared by Irene Jansen on 28 May 12 - No Cached
  • In his latest book, Seeking Sickness (Greystone Books
  • what have the independent experts said about the value of the screening. The United States Preventive Services Task Force is one of them. The Canadian Task Force on Preventive Health Care, that's the Canadian equivalent. Most of the stuff you see about prevention is biased. For every one site like this funded by the taxpayer with largely no conflicts of interest, there's a hundred sites that will tell you other things.
  • there is often little evidence they actually extend lives and in some cases they are likely to lead to more harm than good
  • ...10 more annotations...
  • the consumer is naked in the screening market place. There's no one really protecting people from being exposed to screening that is neither recommended, didn't have scientific support, that had evidence of harm in terms of exposure to radiation and good evidence that kind of screening causes huge amounts of follow up in the average person
  • They're marketed as providing peace of mind, when they are statistically more likely to do the opposite, which is to give you a bunch of things you now have to worry about that you never knew you had to worry about before.
  • they may say prostate cancer screening improves survival time, as opposed to improving survival, meaning the time you survive after they've diagnosed you with the disease. If you're tied to the railway track, and the train's coming down the track and it's going to hit you at a particular time, you can see it maybe without binoculars at five miles, say a five year survival rate. Or, if you use the screening test, binoculars, you can see it at seven miles. Your survival time has improved. The date at which the train hits you does not change, but the statistics look like the survival time has improved by two years.
  • Cassels looks at tests that are commonly given to healthy people, including screens for prostate cancer, breast cancer, osteoporosis and high cholesterol.
  • the business model depends on overdiagnosis and over treatment
  • There's a huge gap in the pharmaceutical world between what the marketers or advertisers say and what the evidence says. In screening it's the same niche
  • It's a bigger tent. There's the patient advocates, the radiologists, the urologists, the specialists and the others who are pushing various types of screening. And the drug industry is there too.
  • You don't need to prove the benefits of a screening test before you launch it on the public.
  • many doctors feel they have lawyers looking over their shoulders as they consider whether or not to recommend a screen
  • I think that's a largely US thing, but I think it motivates physicians here as well.
1 - 20 of 140 Next › Last »
Showing 20▼ items per page