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Contents contributed and discussions participated by Irene Jansen

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Irene Jansen

Ontario College of Physicians and Surgeons drags heels on openness: Editorial | Toronto... - 0 views

www.thestar.com/...els_on_openness_editorial.html

Ontario private clinics inspections reporting

shared by Irene Jansen on 04 Feb 13 - No Cached
  • It’s taken two months of prodding, a direct order from the government and a long series of meetings, consultations and legal manoeuvres, but the identity of nine taxpayer-funded health clinics that failed recent safety inspections is finally out in the open.
  • Ontarians will now be able to check online before deciding where to go for cataract surgery, a colonoscopy, liposuction or pain management.
  • But the Ontario College of Physicians and Surgeons, which performs the inspections, is still withholding some information.
  • ...1 more annotation...
  • the college will not name clinics that have failed in the past, no matter how serious the infraction
Irene Jansen

Tentative agreement reached for B.C. health science professionals < Bargaining, British... - 0 views

cupe.ca/...a510afdaa39377

bc cupe bargaining wages benefits snapshot

shared by Irene Jansen on 02 Feb 13 - No Cached
  • After almost a year of bargaining for a new contract, the Health Science Professionals Bargaining Association (HSPBA) has reached a tentative agreement for nearly 17,000 health science professionals working in hospitals and communities across British Columbia.
  • The tentative agreement includes wage increases totaling 3 percent, and makes permanent a market adjustment of between 9 and 14 percent over and above the basic wage rates for pharmacists.
  • provisions that protect the health and safety of health science professionals in short supply who often work on call
  • ...5 more annotations...
  • fairly compensate those who work extraordinary shifts
  • The agreement brings a return to a 37.5 hour work week
  • includes a commitment to a Pharmacare tie-in which is comparable to pharmaceutical coverage offered by BC Pharmacare, and a joint process to realize savings in extended benefit coverage
  • CUPE represents approximately 550 health science professionals in the bargaining association.
  • CUPE represents approximately 550 health science professionals in the bargaining association. T
Irene Jansen

HEU calls for audit of outsourced medical transcription services over privacy concerns ... - 1 views

www.heu.org/...ion-services-over-privacy-conc

bc cupe transcription contracting out privacy

shared by Irene Jansen on 31 Jan 13 - No Cached
  • The Hospital Employees’ Union is asking B.C.’s privacy commissioner Elizabeth Denham to launch an investigation into outsourced medical transcription services in the Lower Mainland, citing concerns over the privacy and accuracy of patients’ medical information.
  • Over the past few years, these health authorities have dramatically expanded the outsourcing of medical transcription and plan to completely contract out the service by 2014.
  • HEU’s January 31 letter to B.C.’s privacy commissioner
Irene Jansen

Long-term care operators warn of cuts over new funding model (part 2) - 0 views

www2.canada.com/...story.html

abf Alberta ltc wages privatization

shared by Irene Jansen on 29 Jan 13 - No Cached
  • one of the issues with the new approach is that it assigns money based on the provincial average cost of a health worker, but staff at many non-profit operations are longer-term employees who make more than average
  • In addition, non-profits typically offer more expensive benefits, including higher pension
  • the biggest problem is the long-term-care sector overall is underfunded
  • ...1 more annotation...
  • Any cuts to contracted operators, both for-profit and non-profit, will begin April 1, but will be phased in over three years
Irene Jansen

Long-term care operators warn of cuts over new funding model (part 1) - 0 views

www2.canada.com/...story.html

abf Alberta ltc wages privatization

shared by Irene Jansen on 29 Jan 13 - No Cached
  • Two not-for-profit agencies that together operate more than 1,000 long-term care beds in Alberta say their operations are financially strained and they will need to consider staffing or service reductions unless the government gives them more money.
  • T he Shepherd's Ca re Foundation in Edmonton and Calgary-based Bethany Care Society say a new patient-based funding model from Alberta Health Services is insufficient to manage rising expenses.
  • AHS pushes ahead with the new funding model, which it says is designed to ensure equality for all long-term care residents, whether their care is provided by a public institution, a not-for-profit agency or a for-profit corporation.
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • uses a formula to take into account the needs of each patient, calculate the health resources required, and then allocate a standard funding amount
  • The old system was considered more uneven, in that different long-term care operators each received a block of funding based on individual agreements with health authorities.
Irene Jansen

Density and the city: How will Toronto health care cope with population growth? - Healt... - 0 views

www.healthzone.ca/...re-cope-with-population-growth

emerg substitution Ontario chc

shared by Irene Jansen on 28 Jan 13 - No Cached
  • Orleans Urgent Care
  • a walk-in clinic on steroids
  • “Urgent care, if done properly and not affiliated with a public facility — because costs go up — in the right spots, where there are crowded emergency departments and difficulty accessing care, they could fill the gap.”
  • ...7 more annotations...
  • The cost of seeing a single patient, who is typically treated and out the door within a few hours, is minimal next to the single-patient cost at a hospital. Sardana said the average is about $12 per patient, compared with roughly $180 at a hospital.
  • Urgent care centres aren’t nearly as common in Canada as they are in the United States. Since the late 1990s, the number of such clinics south of the border has grown to nearly 9,000, according to a 2011 report from the Urgent Care Association of America.
  • While the Orleans clinic carries a full staff, Sardana said it isn’t easy to find physicians and nurses experienced in emergency-room care
  • While the pay is still good, it isn’t comparable to hospital salaries.
  • More than 70 community health centres now exist across the province, offering access to primary health care through doctors, nurse practitioners, dietitians and other services — again, limiting the need to rely on hospitals.
  • A study released in March by the Association of Ontario Health Centres found that patients who took advantage of community health centres used a hospital 21 per cent less than patients who received their care elsewhere.
  • “We need to do a much better job with models of care and places of accessing care within the system that already have demonstrated some of the burdens that we’re potentially looking at urgent care clinics to take care of.”
Irene Jansen

CUPE Saskatchewan Health Care Council launches television ad Behind the scenes and on t... - 0 views

cupe.ca/...scenes-front-line

cupe Saskatchewan bargaining ad

shared by Irene Jansen on 28 Jan 13 - No Cached
  • “Your Mom” follows a mother and her daughter during the mother’s hospital stay and features some of the many ways CUPE members contribute to patient care.&nbsp;
Irene Jansen

Private health contractor's staff told to cut 999 calls to meet targets | Society | The... - 0 views

www.guardian.co.uk/...te-health-contractor-999-calls

NHS it ems primary care privatization serco quality staffing p4p

shared by Irene Jansen on 28 Jan 13 - No Cached
  • Call handlers staffing an out-of-hours GP service run by the private contractor Serco have been told to make new checks before calling 999 when they receive what appear to be emergency cases in order to cut down the number of referrals they make to the ambulance service.
  • a management email to staff describing how they should manipulate their computer system in order to meet targets set down in the company's contract on 999 responses.
  • replace skilled clinicians with call-handlers without medical training who follow a computer-generated script to assess patients. The move triggered a fourfold increase in ambulance call-outs.
  • ...3 more annotations...
  • Staff have expressed concern that this might delay an ambulance in a real emergency and that the new system is not sophisticated enough to distinguish between urgent and less serious cases.
  • The Guardian revealed last year that whistleblowers believed the company was putting patients at risk and falsifying data.
  • too few staff to operate safely
Irene Jansen

New rural emergency centres rely on nurses and paramedics at night | Canada | News | Na... - 0 views

news.nationalpost.com/...nurses-and-paramedics-at-night

rural hospital emerg ems

shared by Irene Jansen on 28 Jan 13 - No Cached
  • a revolution in emergency health care for rural Canada.
  • emergency rooms without doctors
  • Nova Scotia, which now has six of what the province calls “CECs,” or collaborative emergency centres
  • ...10 more annotations...
  • P.E.I
  • Saskatchewan
  • Now, it’s spreading to other provinces
  • For Nova Scotia, this began in 2009, when the government sent Dr. John Ross — its advisor on emergency care and a respected emergency room physician — to tour the province’s ERs. His 2010 plan, “Better Care Sooner” found only about 2% of patients going to rural ERs had real emergencies.
  • Cutting the night shifts in some hospitals, he said, would allow doctors to run more clinic hours.
  • If you lost the physician, you lost the coverage, so the emergency room just closed.
  • Now, Mr. Wilson said, patients can get appointments on 48 hours notice, when previously some had to wait five weeks to see a general practitioner.
  • at the CECs, a doctor, or group of doctors, still cover the busy 12 hours a day. At night, paramedics and nurses are able to treat many of the patients, and are able to quickly transport anyone critical to the nearest full-service ER.
  • “[If] it’s simply because of a doctor shortage, I really don’t think this is acceptable at all,” Dr. Affleck said. “You need to find the appropriate doctors to staff a true emergency department, if that is what the issue is.”
  • Mr. Wilson, though, said he is confident in the province-wide paramedic dispatch, which can quickly triage the call and determine whether a CEC or full ER is required.
Irene Jansen

Private medical clinics offering pricey care perks - 0 views

www.thenownews.com/...story.html

Alberta private clinics user fees

shared by Irene Jansen on 28 Jan 13 - No Cached
  • increasing numbers of Albertans are choosing to pay for memberships at private clinics
  • In the four years since it opened, Copeman has seen its roster of clients willing to pay the annual charge of up to $3,900 to become patients at its Beltline facility swell from a few hundred into the thousands.
  • Last summer, it opened a second clinic in Edmonton.
  • ...7 more annotations...
  • In recent years, at least four other companies — Helios Wellness Centres, Inliv, Provital Health and Wellness, and Preventous Collaborative Health — have also opened clinics in Calgary
  • an inquiry into preferential access to health services heard testimony that Helios clients who paid annual fees of up to $10,000 got screening for colon cancer at a public facility within months, while other routine patients waited up to three years.
  • At a website where consumers can rate their physicians, anonymous comments indicate some doctors have dumped existing patients in the public system so they can take on paying clients at private clinics.
  • Dr. Trevor Theman, registrar of the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Alberta, said he’s warned doctors joining these clinics that they risk breaking the disciplinary body’s standards of practice if they terminate their relationship with patients based on their socio-economic status.
  • he’s ready to investigate.
  • Health Minister Fred Horne urged patients who may have been dumped by doctors joining private clinics to contact his office.
  • William Lahey, a law professor at Dalhousie University who prepared a report for the public inquiry, says he’s concerned the private clinics may be violating the spirit if not the letter of federal health legislation.
Irene Jansen

Liberals defend public medicine - Editorials - Times Colonist - 0 views

www.timescolonist.com/...defend-public-medicine-1.56714

BC private clinics legislation

shared by Irene Jansen on 28 Jan 13 - No Cached
  • the government intends to argue that private clinics like the Cambie Centre are, by their very nature, a threat to public health care.
  • The government’s case rests on five central assertions:
  • Private clinics frequently employ physicians who also work in public hospitals.
  • ...4 more annotations...
  • Private clinics offer higher salaries for less effort
  • a “tendency” for physicians who practise in both systems to recruit patients for their private clinic
  • a tendency for those doctors to withhold accurate information about wait lists and treatment options in the public system
  • a tendency for physicians who own private clinics to refer patients for care and treatment that is “not appropriate.”
Irene Jansen

NDP balks at privatizing hospital food services | The Chronicle Herald - 1 views

thechronicleherald.ca/...atizing-hospital-food-services

ns ndp hospital food laundry contracting out shared services

shared by Irene Jansen on 25 Jan 13 - No Cached
  • The NDP government has no plans to allow Capital Health to contract out food services, even though it loses money consistently, Health Minister David Wilson said Thursday.
  • Authority officials also said they’ve asked the government for the last three years to allow them to contract out food services
  • last March’s announcement to merge health authorities’ administrative services
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • The report recommended privatizing laundry services, but the government rejected the idea.
  • “We’re working with the unions, we’re working with the health authorities, we’re working with the boards that are around the province to find those savings.”
Irene Jansen

Drug-resistant infections could pose 'apocalyptic scenario', medical experts warn - the... - 0 views

www.thestar.com/...rnings-of-apocalyptic-scenario

hai prevention

shared by Irene Jansen on 25 Jan 13 - No Cached
  • Britain’s chief medical officer
  • warned a U.K. parliamentary committee about the dangers of antibiotic drug resistance, a threat so dire she wants it added to Britain’s register of civil emergencies — alongside other dangers such as terrorist threats, pandemic influenza and natural disasters
  • she has previously called it a threat as serious to mankind as global warming
  • ...3 more annotations...
  • earlier this month, the World Economic Forum included antibiotic drug resistance in its Global Risks 2013 report, calling it “arguably the greatest risk of hubris to human health.”
  • The existing market model simply doesn’t work, McGeer said. Pharmaceutical companies profit more from drugs used to treat chronic diseases, not antibiotics that patients use for just a few days, she said.
  • prevention will have to be a cornerstone. “The most effective way of not using antibiotics is to not have the infection in the first place,” McGeer said.
Irene Jansen

Health network wrong to delete names from wait-list - Infomart - 1 views

www.fpinfomart.ca/doc/doc_display.php?key=pr|122099|frdg|20130125|159813949

nb Canada Health Act access

shared by Irene Jansen on 25 Jan 13 - No Cached
  • On Dec. 1 last year, the Horizon Health Network sent 500 patients on a physiotherapy wait-list at the Miramichi Hospital a letter that said, "Any referrals that we have had over six months have been returned to the referral source and are no longer held on a wait-list in the department."
  • These New Brunswickers are insured persons and physiotherapy services at hospitals are insured services. A province's health-care system cannot simply take 500 people off a wait-list for an insured service without creating a real risk of offending the principle of accessibility.
Irene Jansen

Vancouver Coastal Health ordered to stop punitive measures against sick and injured wor... - 0 views

www.heu.org/...gainst-sick-and-injured-worker

from heather bc cupe health and safety attendance management

shared by Irene Jansen on 22 Jan 13 - No Cached
  • the Vancouver Coastal Health Authority has been ordered to stop engaging in practices that punish workers for being sick or injured
  • Under the health authority’s so-called Attendance Wellness Program, OT bans and reduced hours are put in place automatically for workers who experience higher than average sick time usage. Ready ordered that the practice be stopped
  • arbitrator Vince Ready has ruled that the health authority must end the practice of denying overtime, reducing hours or threatening to fire workers for illness or injury.
Irene Jansen

Steve Morgan. "Insurance" can't fix Canada's pharmacare problem Healthy Debate Jan 7 2013 - 2 views

healthydebate.ca/...fix-canadas-pharmacare-problem

from heather pharmacare

shared by Irene Jansen on 22 Jan 13 - No Cached
  • By Steve Morgan(Show all posts by Steve Morgan)– January 7, 2013
  • Canadian provinces are moving toward a model of “catastrophic” drug coverage instead of a pharmacare model more comparable to our “Medicare” system
  • Depending on the province, public coverage against catastrophic drug costs means that patients must pay between 3% and 10% of their household income before any public subsidy kicks in.
  • ...5 more annotations...
  • Asking them to pay from 3% to 10% of their family incomes out-of-pocket before subsidies kick in is tantamount to putting a tax on illness.
  • insurance for drug costs is nothing like fire insurance. Population-based data from British Columbia and from Manitoba confirm that needs for high costs prescription drugs are seldom one-time events. People with the highest needs for prescription drugs require thousands of dollars’ worth of medicines, and they typically have such needs year-after-year, often until death.
  • A recent study found that one in ten Canadians don’t take their medicines as prescribed because of cost.
  • Data from Statistics Canada indicates that only half of Canadian workers have supplemental medical coverage that might cover prescription drugs – and only a third of Canadians who work for small businesses have such coverage.
  • Those who don’t have insurance through work can find it hard to buy insurance on their own.
Irene Jansen

HEU submission on LPN regulation Jan 8 2013 - 0 views

www.heu.org/...akes-submission-lpn-regulation

from heather bc cupe pn regulation scope

shared by Irene Jansen on 22 Jan 13 - No Cached
  • In response to proposed changes to the regulation that governs the LPN profession that were announced this fall, HEU made a submission on December 21 to the B.C. Ministry of Health.&nbsp;
  • government’s proposed changes to the regulation currently governing LPN practice –&nbsp;while containing some advancements –&nbsp;also has the potential to set back LPN practice
  • the regulation moves away from LPNs being under the direct supervision of an RN, to a “restricted activities” model
  • ...1 more annotation...
  • the proposed new regulation does not reflect the full scope of current LPN practice and competencies, and could negatively impact LPN utilization
Irene Jansen

Privatization not magical solution » StraightGoods.ca - 0 views

sgnews.ca/...atization-not-magical-solution

from heather saskatchewan hospital food privatization

shared by Irene Jansen on 21 Jan 13 - No Cached
  • A recent report by the Canadian Taxpayers Federation about losses in the cafeterias at the Saskatoon Health Region hospitals leaves much to be desired in terms of actual background or fact.
  • I am a Red Seal chef and have worked in health care for more than 15 years.
  • The prices charged at the cafeterias are kept lower than in the private sector because the health region does not design the service to be a money-making proposition. It's there to provide quality food to assist in the healing process.
  • ...3 more annotations...
  • In a privatized cafeteria,
  • If we were to privatize the cafeterias under the guise of "saving money," we would in fact see those very costs passed onto the customer and to the health region administration.
  • Everyone would pay more.
Irene Jansen

Provinces reach deal to save on 6 generic drugs - Hamilton - 1 views

www.cbc.ca/...drugs-provinces-wall-ghiz.html

cof pharmacare purchasing

shared by Irene Jansen on 21 Jan 13 - No Cached
  • Provinces and territories will start paying less for six widely used generic drugs after April 1, under a new agreement reached by the Council of the Federation's Health Care Innovation Working Group.
  • Provinces currently pay anywhere from 25 to 40 per cent of the brand-name price for the six medications, depending on what each jurisdiction negotiates with the generic-drug producer.
  • Using a more co-ordinated national approach, provinces will pay less — only 18 per cent — starting this April, saving provincial drug plans as much as $100 million.
  • ...4 more annotations...
  • only some of the savings will be reinvested in health care
  • In other jurisdictions, generic drug purchases are put out to tender, which can lower prices further.
  • Jim Keon, the president of the Canadian Generic Pharmaceutical Association, said his organization was pleased that the provinces took the bulk-purchasing route instead.
  • The Canadian Medical Association said Friday's agreement is a good first step, but more needs to be done. "It doesn't really replace an overall pharmacare strategy for the country that would cover a very broad range of prescription drugs," said the CMA's chair, Dr. Anna Reid.
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