Kim Feraday

Kickstarting Ontario eHealth

The Ontario Liberals have rightly been raked over the coals for the massive waste of taxpayer money spent to get Electronic Health Records implemented in Ontario. The government needs a workable plan to start to get health records on line in a reasonable time frame. They are already talking beyond the 2015 timetable that McGuinty originally established. 

But rather than start from scratch why not look to solutions already in the marketplace like Microsoft Healthvault of Google Health? Both support industry standards for exchanging data including Continuity of Care Record and Continuity of Care Document. They also allow for integration of other health data from devices such as heart rate watches and blood pressure monitors. In the United States they have integrated with providers, payers and pharmacies so they have integration experience across the healthcare ecosystem. Hopefully, they'll start adding social media capabilities such as blogs for patient diaries, microblogging for disease management campaigns and wikis to give patients access to research and advice to aid them in managing their conditions. 

Best of all patients, not government or individual hospitals or health networks, will own their patient records and be able to manage how it is distributed. Even better Telus licensed the rights to Healthvault in Canada in May of this year, so the opportunity (at least with Microsoft) is there. Google Health and IBM have a partnership but it's not clear to me that it extends to Canada. If the demand was there I'm sure they'd make it happen. Let's hope it does. 

BC Liberals enabling private healthcare

The Globe and Mail published this article (Private insurance attacked) on Tuesday. Since last September, Acure Health Inc., and Alberta health insurance company has been selling policies in British Columbia that allows patients to book into private clinics if they have waited longer than 45 days for medical treatment for "serious illnesses. While I'm all for looking for new models of health care delivery, creating an environment where individuals can pay for faster access is not one of them. It punishes those who can least afford health care and draws already scarce resources from the public system.

According to the Globe article, B.C. Health Minister George Abbott has been aware of the Acure insurance plan for a "number of months" but hasn't acted yet. I'm not convinced that they will. I wrote to Lorne Mayencourt my MLA on this issue early this year and his response indicates that the Liberal government here is in fact embracing the private health care model. He states in his message that given rising health care costs the BC Government must " address all feasible opportunities to minimize the strain on the BC taxpayer and modernize our health care framework in order to benefit from all available cost offsets." He goes on to state that he believes "that we must move forward with a realistic approach to servicing all BC patients, and take into consideration the long term benefits of a thoughtful and proactive public/private medical partnership."

If Mr. Mayencourt's position is in keeping with the Campbell governments (and why wouldn't it be?) then it would seem that the Liberal government here is moving aggressively to enabling a more American style health care system. This would be a tragedy. Private health care models have yet to prove to be a workable model. It hasn't worked in the United States or in Britain. While our public system needs significant improvement it remains the best option for Canada. If you live in BC I encourage you to write to your MLA and call for action on this issue.

Health care privatization doesn't work

Frank Dobson, currently a British member of Parliament and secretary of health in Tony Blair's cabinet from 1997 to 1999, wrote a strong argument why we must stop the privatization of healthcare in Canada in today's Vancouver Sun (Health care privatization hasn't worked well in Britain). Dobson refutes claims by healthcare lobbyists (I assume he means Brian Day and others) and some B.C. politicians, that healthcare privatization in the U.K. has been a success. In Dobson's words, "nothing could be further from the truth."

Why? Operations in private hospitals cost significantly more than in public hospitals; competition has reduced, rather than improved operational efficiency by reducing cooperation; administrative costs have increased by 11%; increased costs caused the National Health service to go into the red for the first time in 60 years.

Is this the type of system our politicians want for our healthcare? If they do then they're fools. Public healthcare should be viewed as a common good that provides social and economic value that are eliminated with privatization. We must voice our objection to this trend and let our politicians know that if they continue down this they won't be welcome back come the next election.

You can also voice your objection to Brian Day, the current President of the Canadian Medical Association and one of the key proponents in privatizing healthcare. You can find his website (and contact information) here.