Archive for the ‘Health Delivery System’ Category
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Cutting ER wait times? There’s an app for that
Saturday, March 30th, 2024
One prescription for improving the health of the urgent care sector: AI and virtual emergency departments are cutting wait times in the real ones… Researchers programmed AI into an app to determine which patients are most urgently in need of care… [plus] online emergency department bookings… with a list of criteria to determine if their condition allows for a short wait before receiving care… [and the use of] data points to boost staff at more demanding times.
Tags: mental Health, standard of living
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Can new approaches to medical curriculum solve the family doctor shortage?
Friday, March 22nd, 2024
Three new medical schools and an innovative family medicine program look to alleviate a crisis in primary care… Team-based or multidisciplinary care is… an approach that the Canadian Medical Association (CMA) wants provinces to adopt, and soon… While the new medical programs hold a lot of promise for alleviating the family doctor shortage… solving it entirely is a collective responsibility that extends to and beyond all medical schools in Canada.
Tags: Health, ideology, jurisdiction, standard of living
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I had to turn another patient away: It doesn’t have to be that way
Thursday, February 29th, 2024
It’s actually physically impossible for a solo family doctor to keep up with all the needed acute, chronic and preventive care, let alone look after their many results and consult notes while running what amounts to a small business… Primary care teams are urgently needed to share these responsibilities and make the most of family doctors’ skills… also needed is a clear vision and a steadfast commitment to reconstructing primary care.
Tags: budget, Health, ideology, mental Health
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Why is Ontario embracing private health care? The Scandinavian experience shows it hurts both the quality and choice of care
Tuesday, February 20th, 2024
A new report examines trends in Sweden, Norway, the United States, France and Great Britain, where the pursuit of profit by financial capital is systematically devouring public funding, eroding quality of care and degrading working conditions. Sound familiar? It should: The tapeworm economy has arrived in Ontario, and we need to control it… The escalating profitization of care gobbles up funds that could improve care.
Tags: budget, economy, Health, ideology, jurisdiction, privatization
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How better and cheaper software could save millions of dollars while improving Canada’s health-care system
Monday, February 5th, 2024
Although the Canadian federal government has invested over $2.1 billion developing health information technology (HIT), all 10 provinces still have their own separate HIT systems. Besides being an obvious source of redundancy and waste, these systems: do not work together, are expensive and are inconsistent… we analyzed the economic costs and savings of integrating some of the functions of the software…
Tags: budget, Health, jurisdiction, privatization
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No end to the ER crisis without investments and addressing workers’ concerns
Wednesday, January 17th, 2024
We recently estimated that dealing with those pressures and bringing back the quality of care in our hospitals to an acceptable standard would require a $1.25 billion annual investment after offsetting costs of inflation. But so far, the Ford government is letting the hospitals deteriorate while it sits on $5.4 billion in contingency funding. If this government is serious about addressing the hospital crisis, it must commit to historic investments immediately.
Tags: budget, economy, Health, ideology, jurisdiction, standard of living
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Everything we know (so far) about the Canadian Dental Care Plan
Sunday, January 14th, 2024
The program will roll out over two years. By May 2024, everyone over the age of 65 who meets eligibility requirements will be able to apply… By the end of the year, qualifying disabled people and those under 18 should be enrolled. After that, enrollment will open to all other eligible Canadians who meet the income threshold (less than $90,000 in household take-home pay) and don’t have access to private insurance through their employer… Program eligibility will depend on the income reported on your previous-year tax return.
Tags: Health, participation, Seniors, standard of living, youth
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Critical nursing shortage puts patients at risk
Saturday, December 30th, 2023
As the health care crisis rages unabated across the country, it is nurses who are holding our health systems together through grit, determination and a shocking amount of overtime… Fixing the nursing shortage is not just about adding more nurses to the system; it’s about addressing the conditions that have created this dire crisis… Relying on excessive overtime or costly private nurse agencies as short-term fixes only exacerbates the systemic challenges facing health care.
Tags: budget, Health, jurisdiction, mental Health, standard of living
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Health care is the Ontario government’s job one. Shouldn’t they be better at it?
Thursday, December 7th, 2023
… this year’s reports on the health-care system are a reminder that spending less is not the same thing as spending well and that, in some cases at least, you need to spend more public money to fix important policy problems. Ontario may be training a record number of nurses, but if we want them to stay in this province, we’ll likely need to pay them more than we currently do — not least because Ontario currently pays nurses less than does any other province… for all the billions of dollars that the government taxes and spends to keep the system running
Tags: budget, Health, ideology, standard of living
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Hospitals plagued by staff shortages and ER closures under Ford government, auditor general finds
Wednesday, December 6th, 2023
Plagued by shortages of doctors and nurses and persistent emergency room closures, Ontario lacks a province-wide strategy to fix the problems, the watchdog agency said in a wide-ranging audit of government performance… The worsening staff shortages have been fuelled by the Ford government’s Bill 124, which limited nurses and many other public sector workers to maximum annual pay hikes of one per cent, the auditor found.
Tags: budget, Health, ideology, jurisdiction
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