Wednesday, June 30, 2010

Beyond Mediocrity: What Canadians Should Expect From Their Healthcare System

... And Why They're Not Getting It
Thought provoking and honest.

Public Presentation by Steven Lewis, U of Calgary/SFU
Dalhousie University School of Health Administration
Halifax, N.S.
Audio/slide presentation
Link

'What Would You Think If...
Your dry cleaner made you wait 3 weeks for your clothes
7% of the meals you ate in restaurants gave you food poisoning"

Part of a series - http://schoolofhealthadministration.dal.ca/Excellence%20in%20Health%20Series/

"Excellence in Health Series
Tomorrow’s Thinking ~ Today’s Care

In 2008 the School of Health Administration established a public-education program entitled, Excellence in Health Series. The Excellence in Health Series is designed to provide an open forum, equally accessible to the public and professional community. The lectures provide a ‘large-canvas’, upon which cutting-edge topics are discussed, from healthcare planning and management, healthcare funding and delivery, healthcare law and legislation, to healthcare policy. All members of the public are welcomed, as are healthcare professionals, from healthcare practitioner, policy analyst, lawyer, to healthcare administrator. To maximally engage the public, the series is held in the evenings, off campus, at a local Hotel, and no admission fee is charged.

The Excellence in Health Series will feature national and internationally lecturers, each respected for their leadership on the topic of discussion. To ensure maximum learning opportunity to the public and professional communities throughout the region, nationally and internationally, the Excellence in Health Series is digitally recorded and made available through the School of Health Administration website.

Beyond Mediocrity: What Canadians Should Expect from their Healthcare System and Why they're not Getting it.
By: Steven Lewis

Medicare and the Law: Playing with a Full(er) Deck
By: William Lahey

How to Reduce Your Risk of Experiencing a Medication Error
By: Dr. Neil MacKinnon

A Weight On Our Minds: Obesity in Nova Scotia
By: Dr. Sara Kirk

Population Aging and Health Care
By: Dr. Kenneth Rockwood

Sunday, April 4, 2010

Coronation Street star speaks out on her thyroid condition

We are grateful when awareness of thyroid health can be raised. Britain's CORONATION STREET and LOOSE WOMEN star Sherrie Hewson has done us all a great service by speaking out about living with an underactive thyroid gland. Link

Wednesday, March 3, 2010

Penalty for maltreatment of patients? A Pension

From the UK's TIMES online, but we know that similar cases exist in Canada:
"In healthcare, social services and education, those responsible for shocking treatment of the public remain untouched and even flourish. The report on the scandal in Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust points to up to 1,200 unnecessary deaths, including four from one family alone within 18 months. Patients were left lying on the floor in their own filth, sobbing with humiliation. But not a single individual has been publicly blamed in this officially “elite” NHS organisation. Indeed, Martin Yeates, its former chief executive, has since left with a £1m pension pot, six months’ salary and a reported £400,000 payoff."

Link

Perhaps this is a step in the right direction
Link

This article lists the salaries of some of the highest paid hospital and medical administrators in Canada.
Take a look and see if you think they are worth all that and a bag of chips - your taxes pay for this.
Is it possible that a pathologist makes about $10k a day?

Saturday, February 20, 2010

The Patient of the Future

Doctors don't like it, but e-Patients - concerned and engaged health researchers and partners - are here, and more are coming.
And - unlike physicians of today - they haven't been educated by the pharmaceutical corporations.

There will be a lot, my friend.
More than can be counted.

How many?

Like the stars.

~ DANCES WITH WOLVES


Slideshow
e-Patients.net
e-Patients PDF

Tuesday, December 22, 2009

NYT: Holding Doctors Accountable for Medical Errors

From the article:

"Q. Has this erosion of trust had a detrimental effect on the patient-doctor relationship?

A. The chaos of everyone doing things their own way is incredibly dangerous, and it is that chaos which gets in the way of the relationship. You can make health care better, safer and less expensive while strengthening the core of the patient-doctor relationship. You can standardize certain parts of care based on clear evidence, which will free up doctors to focus on those pieces of the health care puzzle where there is no data — those issues that are uniquely human and that require judgment, expertise and empathy.

The challenge, though, is to standardize care in a way that will improve safety while retaining the parts that make medicine human. The last thing we want to do is to regiment empathy or to create something so regulated that doctors cannot do something nuanced or innovative for patients.

Q. What are the roles of patients and of doctors in the patient safety movement?

A. If I were a patient or a loved one, I would do what everyone recommends — have a loved one by your side, look for signals that a hospital is safe, check that a physician is board certified. But I am also intensely ambivalent about how responsible patients should be for safety and the prevention of error. Medical mistakes are our bad. Why should patients bear the responsibility to receive the right medication or to have the correct leg amputated? When I get on a plane, I don’t worry about safety and errors.

As for doctors, patient safety can’t happen if physicians aren’t smack in the middle of it. We can either facilitate safety or we can stand its way. We will stand in its way if we embrace our historical approach to these problems, if we instinctively engage in finger-pointing, if we aren’t willing to listen to others.

We have a huge role in creating the kind of environment where people will feel comfortable questioning anything that seems strange or out-of-place and where doctors are open to different opinions from others.

As doctors, we have to admit first that we don’t deliver care that is of the quality and safety our patients deserve. Then we have to get past our professional arrogance. We don’t have the answers to all of these issues, and we have to be open to others who may have the answers or who can approach it from different angles."

Link

Tuesday, December 8, 2009

Patient Empowerment in Medicine

Many medical professionals are often years behind in their reading; understandably they don't like empowered patients.

Some doctors don't like patients who challenge them. Such patients take time and make a doctor work hard. Most doctors want to be considered the authority - even if it kills you.

If you see annotations in your medical file - "patient is getting information from the internet" - it is probably time to move on for the sake of your health and wellness.

Link

Pristiq for Menopause?

If you are a middle-aged woman and your primary care physician or endocrinologist is offering you antidepressants for symptoms, this article
on the marketing of Pristiq
may explain why.
Make sure you have your thyroid checked... menopause troubles may be myxedema.