On Monday, the Alberta government announced it has been conducting an ongoing investigation into the death of a disabled Albertan who was scalded during a bath at a government-funded group home in the Calgary area.

Deaths from these types of thermal burns in government-funded facilities are rare. But they're not unheard of.

She said society needs to do a better job of protecting the most helpless and defenceless citizens — children, seniors and the disabled. Elmgren said she worries that many staff are being overworked, and it's concerning that the Alberta Seniors, the province's department responsible for seniors, responsible for the PDD program, waited as long as it did to inform the public of the Calgary death.

The Canadian Standards Association (CSA) argues that a move toward single patient rooms is vital as nosocomial infections are becoming a deadly concern

There’s an 11% increase in the risk of Clostridium difficile infection, a 10% increase in the risk of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, and an 11% higher risk of vancomycin-resistant Enterococcus  infection with each exposure to a new hospital roommate

While opting to align Canada’s guidelines with those of the United States, the United Kingdom and several Scandinavian nations, the CSA indicated there may be clinical circumstances in which patients would benefit from the social and psychological advantages of shared rooms.

The Ontario Auditor General did a follow up to his 2009 report on health care acquired infections (HAIs) in long term care homes.  

little movement on public reporting of HAIs in LTC

Although Health Quality Ontario  does not provide public information on cases of C. difficile or hand-hygiene compliance among resident-care staff, it does report on other patient-safety indicators, such as the percentage of residents with worsening bladder function and the percentage of residents who had a new pressure ulcer (such as a bedsore) or a pressure ulcer that recently got worse. At the time of our follow-up, only about 125 long-term-care homes, including the three homes audited, reported information publicly on the Health Quality Ontario site. However, the Ministry anticipated that all homes would be participating by March 2012.

a report titled Health Care Cost Drivers, which finds the period from 1998 to 2008 was one in which public health care spending grew at an average of 7.4 per cent annually – double the rate of government revenue

Physician spending was highlighted as one of the fastest-growing public-sector health categories of recent years, with half of the growth attributable to increases in physician fee schedules.

physicians were able to negotiate generous fee increases, given the general perception of physician shortages

This past May, the government announced that they were going to establish a Personal Support Worker Registry. 

mandatory registry that it will be at a minimum a list of names

"grand parenting"

trouble dealing with the sensory overload

too much noise, overcrowding, all of this excessive stimulation is very agitating

Such a reaction to the social frenzy surrounding the holidays is not uncommon, says Kathy Hickman, education manager for the Alzheimer's Society of Ontario.

People who do shift work and work outside standard hours as well as older people feel more excluded from society, according to a new U.K. study.

lead author Dr. Matt Barnes

On average, older people spend 11 hours alone on a weekday and 10½ hours alone at weekends, the study finds.

The provinces of British Columbia, Alberta and Ontario have each recently announced plans to tackle this problem by introducing what is referred to as activity-based funding (ABF)

If the objective of implementing ABF is to reduce waiting times, shortening the lengths of stay is a desirable outcome. Plus, ABF creates incentives for hospitals to take the initiative to discharge "bed blockers"

However, ABF creates its own set of problems: incentives for hospitals to provide the most "profitable" types of care by treating the least ill, and to centralize services, which may improve efficiency but reduces access for small and remote communities.

In 1977 both sides agreed to an incredibly complex formula, the essence of which was that federal funding for health care would increase annually at the rate of the nominal increase in the gross domestic product averaged over the previous three years.

the rate of inflation, add the rate real of economic growth – which, combined, equals nominal GDP

John Wright is CEO of the Canadian Institute for Health Information

Each day, 32 million children in the United States get lunch at schools that participate in the National School Lunch Program, which uses agricultural surplus to feed children.

About a quarter of the school nutrition program has been privatized, much of it outsourced to food service management giants like Aramark, based in Philadelphia; Sodexo, based in France; and the Chartwells division of the Compass Group, based in Britain.

more and more pay processors to turn these healthy ingredients into fried chicken nuggets, fruit pastries, pizza and the like

A cut in provincial fees paid to certain medical specialists would save deficit-plagued Ontario $5 billion over four years

The report by the Mowat Centre for Policy Innovation points to the potential savings as one reason the Ontario government should overhaul its payment system for the province's 26,000 doctors, who represent the fastest-growing expense of the $47.6 billion being spent on health care this year.

Report co-author Will Falk singled out the lucrative fees paid to cataract surgeons, radiologists, endoscopists and orthopedic surgeons, which have not fallen over the past decade.

Health Minister Leona Aglukkaq

"We will continue to increase funding for health care in a way that is balanced and sustainable."

At the core of their talks will be two issues. How much money does the federal government give the provinces over the long term for health care? And how much freedom are the provinces given by Harper to experiment with private delivery of health care to get control of their own costs to the public health system?

explaining the methodology of the study – something I noticed La Presse and some of the other media reporting on the study didn’t do

only 253 Quebec specialists (PDF) responded to the two-page survey sent to them by the Fraser Institute, a 9 per cent response rate out of 2,979 surveys distributed in Quebec – 6 percentage points fewer than the next lowest province, Ontario (see p. 38 of the report).

the Globe only published a short Canadian Press story about the study – nothing more

The official Conservative election platform actually included no mention of the 6% escalator, but in a news release sent out 17 days later, the Conservative campaign referenced the promise three times.

A re-elected Conservative Government will build on our strong record of protecting Canada’s universal health-care system by increasing funding for health care by 6 per cent per year

Reelected on May 2, the Conservatives then wrote the 6% promise into the Speech from the Throne.

The BMA has changed its official policy to one of full opposition to the Health and Social Care Bill and its proposed reforms of the NHS.

In its paper it said that, despite several successful amendments to the bill, major areas of concerns had still not been dealt with sufficiently, such as a continuing over-reliance on market forces to shape care and concerns about the future delivery of public health and medical education.

Professor Pollock believed that the bill could be stopped, saying, “What the BMA are saying to the House of Lords is that they now have complete opposition to the bill, so the Lords must take this seriously if the majority of doctors are now opposing it.”

Labour, environmental, Indigenous, women’s, academic, health sector and fair trade organizations from Europe, Canada and Quebec representing more than 65 million people are demanding that Canada and the EU stop negotiating an excessive and controversial investor rights chapter in the proposed Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA).

endorsed by more than 70 organizations

a briefing from the Public Services Internal Research Unit (PSIRU) on the problems that PPPs can cause

the PPP briefing shows that PPPs do not supplement public spending – they absorb it

The Lean Health Care Value Stream Mapping course is taking place on March 8, 2012 in Toronto. For more information or to register, click here.

The Lean Health Care Value Stream Mapping course

 new Lean Health Care Value Stream Mapping course.